Kuraudia Co Ltd (3607) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Apparel/Accessories
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kuraudia Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kuraudia Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kuraudia Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kuraudia Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kuraudia Co Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Kuraudia Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kuraudia Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kuraudia Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kuraudia Co Ltd
Strengths of Kuraudia Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kuraudia Co Ltd are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kuraudia Co Ltd staying ahead in the Apparel/Accessories industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kuraudia Co Ltd in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Kuraudia Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kuraudia Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kuraudia Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kuraudia Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Kuraudia Co Ltd is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Kuraudia Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kuraudia Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kuraudia Co Ltd in Apparel/Accessories industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Apparel/Accessories
– Kuraudia Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kuraudia Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Apparel/Accessories industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kuraudia Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kuraudia Co Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry
– Kuraudia Co Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kuraudia Co Ltd has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kuraudia Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Japan. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Japan. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Kuraudia Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kuraudia Co Ltd are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kuraudia Co Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kuraudia Co Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Kuraudia Co Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Kuraudia Co Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Kuraudia Co Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kuraudia Co Ltd has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kuraudia Co Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Apparel/Accessories industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kuraudia Co Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kuraudia Co Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kuraudia Co Ltd to provide better information regarding Apparel/Accessories products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Kuraudia Co Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, but Kuraudia Co Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kuraudia Co Ltd to focus more on services in the Apparel/Accessories industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kuraudia Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Kuraudia Co Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kuraudia Co Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry over the last five years. Kuraudia Co Ltd even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kuraudia Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kuraudia Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kuraudia Co Ltd has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Kuraudia Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kuraudia Co Ltd are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kuraudia Co Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kuraudia Co Ltd to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Kuraudia Co Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kuraudia Co Ltd can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kuraudia Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kuraudia Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Apparel/Accessories sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kuraudia Co Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Apparel/Accessories industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Apparel/Accessories industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kuraudia Co Ltd can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Kuraudia Co Ltd can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kuraudia Co Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Apparel/Accessories industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Apparel/Accessories sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kuraudia Co Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kuraudia Co Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kuraudia Co Ltd in the Apparel/Accessories industry. Now Kuraudia Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Kuraudia Co Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Apparel/Accessories sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kuraudia Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Kuraudia Co Ltd will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kuraudia Co Ltd can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Threats Kuraudia Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kuraudia Co Ltd are -
Increasing wage structure of Kuraudia Co Ltd
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Kuraudia Co Ltd.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kuraudia Co Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kuraudia Co Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kuraudia Co Ltd demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kuraudia Co Ltd can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Apparel/Accessories industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kuraudia Co Ltd can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Kuraudia Co Ltd prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Kuraudia Co Ltd needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Apparel/Accessories industry regulations.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Kuraudia Co Ltd will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Apparel/Accessories industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kuraudia Co Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kuraudia Co Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories sector.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Kuraudia Co Ltd.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Kuraudia Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kuraudia Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kuraudia Co Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Kuraudia Co Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Kuraudia Co Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Kuraudia Co Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Kuraudia Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
