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 transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, 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 -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Meiwa Industry 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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Meiwa Industry is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Parts industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Meiwa Industry digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Meiwa Industry 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.
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.
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Meiwa Industry is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This has provided Meiwa Industry a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
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.
Weaknesses of Meiwa Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Meiwa Industry are -
High dependence on Meiwa Industry ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Meiwa Industry still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Auto & Truck Parts industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Meiwa Industry has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Meiwa Industry, in the dynamic environment of Auto & Truck Parts industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Meiwa Industry has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Meiwa Industry is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, but Meiwa Industry needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Meiwa Industry to focus more on services in the Auto & Truck Parts industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Meiwa Industry has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Meiwa Industry 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry using digital technology.
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.
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.
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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Meiwa Industry needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Parts industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Meiwa Industry can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Meiwa Industry is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
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.
Meiwa Industry Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Meiwa Industry are -
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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Meiwa Industry can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Auto & Truck Parts 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.
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.
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.
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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Meiwa Industry can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Meiwa Industry to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Auto & Truck Parts industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Meiwa Industry can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Meiwa Industry can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Meiwa Industry operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Meiwa Industry 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Meiwa Industry is facing in Auto & Truck Parts sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Auto & Truck Parts industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Meiwa Industry can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Meiwa Industry
– 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 Meiwa Industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Meiwa Industry in Auto & Truck Parts industry. The Auto & Truck Parts industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
