Amita (2195) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Waste Management Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Amita (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Amita is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Amita can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Amita, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Amita 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 Amita can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Amita
2. Improving business portfolio management of Amita
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Waste Management Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Amita
Strengths of Amita | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Amita are -
Strong track record of project management in the Waste Management Services industry
– Amita is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Amita 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.
Digital Transformation in Waste Management Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Amita digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Amita 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 Amita in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Amita has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Amita to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Amita 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Amita is one of the most innovative firm in Waste Management Services sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Amita has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Amita 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Amita in Waste Management Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Amita has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Amita staying ahead in the Waste Management Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Amita comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Waste Management Services 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
– Amita has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Waste Management Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Amita have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Amita has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Amita to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Amita | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Amita are -
Employees’ less understanding of Amita strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Amita 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Amita has some of the most successful models in the Waste Management Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Amita should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Waste Management Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Amita 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Amita is just above the Waste Management Services 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Amita 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Amita has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Waste Management Services industry over the last five years. Amita 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Amita is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Waste Management Services industry, but Amita needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Amita to focus more on services in the Waste Management Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Waste Management Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Amita 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Amita products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Amita needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Amita 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 Waste Management Services 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 Amita supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Amita is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Amita vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Amita Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Amita are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Amita is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Amita can utilize new technology in the field of Waste Management Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Waste Management Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Amita in the Waste Management Services industry. Now Amita can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Amita 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Amita 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
– Amita can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Waste Management Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Amita has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Waste Management Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Amita to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Amita 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 Amita to increase its market reach. Amita 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Amita 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 Amita to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Amita can develop new processes and procedures in Waste Management Services 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Amita 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 Amita to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Amita 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 Waste Management Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Amita can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Amita can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Amita operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Waste Management Services sector.
Threats Amita External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Amita are -
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 Amita in the Waste Management Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Amita has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Waste Management Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Amita needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Waste Management Services 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Amita 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 Waste Management Services industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Amita is facing in Waste Management Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Waste Management Services industry are lowering. It can presents Amita with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Waste Management Services sector.
Increasing wage structure of Amita
– 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 Amita.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Amita 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.
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. Amita needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Waste Management Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Waste Management Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Amita can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Amita business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Amita 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 Waste Management Services industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Amita 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 Amita prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Amita Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Amita 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 Amita 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 Amita 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 Amita 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 Amita needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.