Kamogawa Grand Hotel (9695) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Hotels & Motels
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kamogawa Grand Hotel (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kamogawa Grand Hotel is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, 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, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions,
wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kamogawa Grand Hotel
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kamogawa Grand Hotel can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kamogawa Grand Hotel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kamogawa Grand Hotel
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kamogawa Grand Hotel
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Hotels & Motels sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kamogawa Grand Hotel
Strengths of Kamogawa Grand Hotel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kamogawa Grand Hotel are -
Learning organization
- Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kamogawa Grand Hotel emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kamogawa Grand Hotel comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Organizational Resilience of Kamogawa Grand Hotel
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kamogawa Grand Hotel does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Hotels & Motels industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kamogawa Grand Hotel have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kamogawa Grand Hotel in Hotels & Motels industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kamogawa Grand Hotel staying ahead in the Hotels & Motels industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kamogawa Grand Hotel digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Training and development
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Weaknesses of Kamogawa Grand Hotel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kamogawa Grand Hotel are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Kamogawa Grand Hotel is just above the Hotels & Motels 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, Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kamogawa Grand Hotel has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Hotels & Motels industry over the last five years. Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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, Kamogawa Grand Hotel needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Kamogawa Grand Hotel, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Hotels & Motels 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Kamogawa Grand Hotel has high operating costs in the Hotels & Motels industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kamogawa Grand Hotel lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kamogawa Grand Hotel is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Hotels & Motels industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kamogawa Grand Hotel products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kamogawa Grand Hotel needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Hotels & Motels industry, Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Kamogawa Grand Hotel strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel has some of the most successful models in the Hotels & Motels industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kamogawa Grand Hotel should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Kamogawa Grand Hotel Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kamogawa Grand Hotel are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kamogawa Grand Hotel is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kamogawa Grand Hotel can utilize new technology in the field of Hotels & Motels 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 Hotels & Motels industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kamogawa Grand Hotel in the Hotels & Motels industry. Now Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kamogawa Grand Hotel to increase its market reach. Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kamogawa Grand Hotel can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kamogawa Grand Hotel operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Hotels & Motels sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Hotels & Motels 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
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Hotels & Motels sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kamogawa Grand Hotel to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kamogawa Grand Hotel to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Hotels & Motels industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Hotels & Motels industry. This can help Kamogawa Grand Hotel to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kamogawa Grand Hotel products in the Hotels & Motels 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kamogawa Grand Hotel in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Hotels & Motels industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Kamogawa Grand Hotel External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kamogawa Grand Hotel are -
Environmental challenges
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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. Kamogawa Grand Hotel can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Hotels & Motels industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry regulations.
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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Hotels & Motels industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kamogawa Grand Hotel needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kamogawa Grand Hotel is facing in Hotels & Motels sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel in the Hotels & Motels sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Hotels & Motels industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kamogawa Grand Hotel may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Hotels & Motels sector.
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. Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kamogawa Grand Hotel Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel 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 Kamogawa Grand Hotel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.