SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maruchiyo Yamaokaya (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maruchiyo Yamaokaya is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maruchiyo Yamaokaya, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya
Strengths of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya in Restaurants industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Restaurants industry
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Restaurants industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Maruchiyo Yamaokaya does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya is one of the leading players in the Restaurants 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.
Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Maruchiyo Yamaokaya digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
High brand equity
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Maruchiyo Yamaokaya emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Maruchiyo Yamaokaya staying ahead in the Restaurants industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Weaknesses of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya are -
Need for greater diversity
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring in Restaurants industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Restaurants industry over the last five years. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya is just above the Restaurants 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Restaurants industry using digital technology.
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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Maruchiyo Yamaokaya vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Restaurants 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to provide better information regarding Restaurants products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Restaurants industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Restaurants industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Maruchiyo Yamaokaya Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya are -
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. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Restaurants industry. This can help Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to build a more holistic ecosystem for Maruchiyo Yamaokaya products in the Restaurants industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to increase its market reach. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Restaurants sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Maruchiyo Yamaokaya to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Restaurants 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Maruchiyo Yamaokaya operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Restaurants industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Maruchiyo Yamaokaya in the Restaurants industry. Now Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can develop new processes and procedures in Restaurants 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Restaurants industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Maruchiyo Yamaokaya External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya are -
Increasing wage structure of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya
– 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Restaurants industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Restaurants industry are lowering. It can presents Maruchiyo Yamaokaya with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Restaurants sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Restaurants industry regulations.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Maruchiyo Yamaokaya in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Restaurants industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Maruchiyo Yamaokaya is facing in Restaurants sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Maruchiyo Yamaokaya may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Restaurants sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maruchiyo Yamaokaya Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya 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 Maruchiyo Yamaokaya needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.