SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dream Vision (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dream Vision is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dream Vision can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dream Vision, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dream Vision 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 Dream Vision can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dream Vision
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dream Vision
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dream Vision
Strengths of Dream Vision | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dream Vision are -
Training and development
– Dream Vision has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
High brand equity
– Dream Vision has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dream Vision to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dream Vision has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dream Vision staying ahead in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Dream Vision is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dream Vision are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Dream Vision is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dream Vision has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Dream Vision have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dream Vision in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Dream Vision has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dream Vision to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Dream Vision
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Dream Vision does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dream Vision comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dream Vision is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dream Vision has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dream Vision 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.
Weaknesses of Dream Vision | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dream Vision are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dream Vision, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dream Vision has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dream Vision 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Dream Vision is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Dream Vision is just above the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Employees’ less understanding of Dream Vision strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Dream Vision don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, Dream Vision needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
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 Dream Vision supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Dream Vision is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dream Vision vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Dream Vision ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Dream Vision still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dream Vision has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dream Vision is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Dream Vision to provide better information regarding Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Dream Vision needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dream Vision 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry using digital technology.
Dream Vision Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dream Vision are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dream Vision has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dream Vision to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dream Vision to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dream Vision to increase its market reach. Dream Vision 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Dream Vision can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dream Vision 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. Dream Vision 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dream Vision 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Dream Vision can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dream Vision can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dream Vision has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This can help Dream Vision to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dream Vision products in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Dream Vision 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dream Vision to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Dream Vision to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dream Vision in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Now Dream Vision can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dream Vision 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 Dream Vision to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Dream Vision External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dream Vision are -
Environmental challenges
– Dream Vision needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Dream Vision can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Increasing wage structure of Dream Vision
– 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 Dream Vision.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dream Vision 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dream Vision can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dream Vision high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Regulatory challenges
– Dream Vision 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry are lowering. It can presents Dream Vision with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dream Vision 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dream Vision may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
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.
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 Dream Vision.
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. Dream Vision needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dream Vision Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dream Vision 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 Dream Vision 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 Dream Vision 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 Dream Vision 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 Dream Vision needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
