Zwei (2417) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zwei (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zwei is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, 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 Zwei can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zwei, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zwei 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 Zwei can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zwei
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zwei
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zwei
Strengths of Zwei | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zwei are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zwei has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Zwei have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Zwei 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 Personal Services 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.
Organizational Resilience of Zwei
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zwei does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Zwei is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Zwei in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Personal Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zwei digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zwei 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry
– Zwei is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Zwei is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.
High brand equity
– Zwei has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zwei to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Zwei has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Zwei 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zwei 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zwei has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zwei staying ahead in the Personal Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry
– Zwei has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Zwei to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Zwei to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Zwei | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zwei are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Zwei 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 Personal Services industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Zwei has high operating costs in the Personal Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Zwei lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Zwei 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Zwei 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 Personal Services industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zwei is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal Services industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Zwei products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zwei needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Zwei 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Zwei strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Zwei 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Zwei 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Zwei, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal Services 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Zwei is just above the Personal 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.
Zwei Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zwei are -
Buying journey improvements
– Zwei can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zwei to increase its market reach. Zwei 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
– Zwei 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Zwei has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Zwei to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Zwei to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Zwei can develop new processes and procedures in Personal 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zwei is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zwei can utilize new technology in the field of Personal Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Zwei can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Zwei can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal Services 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zwei 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 Zwei to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Zwei in the Personal Services industry. Now Zwei can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zwei can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zwei operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zwei can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Zwei 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.
Threats Zwei External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zwei are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Zwei with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zwei has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zwei needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal 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.
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 Zwei in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Zwei 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. Zwei can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zwei 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 Zwei prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Zwei
– 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 Zwei.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zwei in Personal Services industry. The Personal Services 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
– Zwei 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 Personal Services 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.
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.
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 Zwei business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Zwei needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zwei 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zwei Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zwei 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 Zwei 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 Zwei 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 Zwei 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 Zwei needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.