Meiwa Industry (7284) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Auto & Truck Parts
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Meiwa Industry (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Meiwa Industry is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, 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, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Meiwa Industry can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Meiwa Industry, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Meiwa Industry 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 Meiwa Industry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Meiwa Industry
2. Improving business portfolio management of Meiwa Industry
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Auto & Truck Parts sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Meiwa Industry
Strengths of Meiwa Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Meiwa Industry are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Meiwa Industry in Auto & Truck Parts industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Meiwa Industry is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Meiwa Industry in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Meiwa Industry has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Meiwa Industry to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Meiwa Industry has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Meiwa Industry staying ahead in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Meiwa Industry has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Meiwa Industry 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.
Training and development
– Meiwa Industry 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Meiwa Industry has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Auto & Truck Parts industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Meiwa Industry have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Meiwa Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Meiwa Industry comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Meiwa Industry is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Organizational Resilience of Meiwa Industry
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Meiwa Industry does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Auto & Truck Parts
– Meiwa Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Meiwa Industry in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Meiwa Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Meiwa Industry are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Meiwa Industry, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Parts industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
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 Meiwa Industry supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Meiwa Industry is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Meiwa Industry vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, Meiwa Industry 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Meiwa Industry is just above the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Skills based hiring in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Meiwa Industry 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Meiwa Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Meiwa Industry needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Meiwa Industry has high operating costs in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Meiwa Industry lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Meiwa Industry has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Auto & Truck Parts industry over the last five years. Meiwa Industry 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Meiwa Industry 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Meiwa Industry is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Meiwa Industry to provide better information regarding Auto & Truck Parts products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Meiwa Industry Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Meiwa Industry are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Meiwa Industry in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Meiwa Industry is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Meiwa Industry can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Parts industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Meiwa Industry can develop new processes and procedures in Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Meiwa Industry has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Auto & Truck Parts industry. This can help Meiwa Industry to build a more holistic ecosystem for Meiwa Industry products in the Auto & Truck Parts industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Meiwa Industry 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 Meiwa Industry to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Meiwa Industry 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Meiwa Industry 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Auto & Truck Parts industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Meiwa Industry 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. Meiwa Industry 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Meiwa Industry can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Meiwa Industry in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. Now Meiwa Industry can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Meiwa Industry has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Auto & Truck Parts sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Meiwa Industry to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Meiwa Industry to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Meiwa Industry can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Meiwa Industry 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.
Threats Meiwa Industry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Meiwa Industry are -
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 Meiwa Industry.
Environmental challenges
– Meiwa Industry 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. Meiwa Industry can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Meiwa Industry 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 Meiwa Industry prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Meiwa Industry 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Meiwa Industry 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry regulations.
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. Meiwa Industry needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Meiwa Industry 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Meiwa Industry 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.
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. Meiwa Industry 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, Meiwa Industry may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Auto & Truck Parts sector.
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 Meiwa Industry business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Meiwa Industry Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Meiwa Industry 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 Meiwa Industry 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 Meiwa Industry 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 Meiwa Industry 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 Meiwa Industry needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.