SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ginza Yamagataya (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ginza Yamagataya is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ginza Yamagataya can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ginza Yamagataya, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ginza Yamagataya
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ginza Yamagataya
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Retail (Apparel) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ginza Yamagataya
Strengths of Ginza Yamagataya | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ginza Yamagataya are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ginza Yamagataya has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ginza Yamagataya staying ahead in the Retail (Apparel) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ginza Yamagataya is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) 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 Ginza Yamagataya comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Analytics focus
– Ginza Yamagataya 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 Retail (Apparel) 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.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Apparel)
– Ginza Yamagataya is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Apparel) industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ginza Yamagataya in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Ginza Yamagataya has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ginza Yamagataya to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Apparel) industry
– Ginza Yamagataya has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ginza Yamagataya to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Apparel) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ginza Yamagataya to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Retail (Apparel) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ginza Yamagataya digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ginza Yamagataya has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Apparel) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ginza Yamagataya have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Ginza Yamagataya
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ginza Yamagataya does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ginza Yamagataya emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ginza Yamagataya in Retail (Apparel) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Ginza Yamagataya | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ginza Yamagataya are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ginza Yamagataya has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Apparel) industry over the last five years. Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ginza Yamagataya 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 Retail (Apparel) industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ginza Yamagataya is just above the Retail (Apparel) 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Apparel) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Ginza Yamagataya 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 Retail (Apparel) industry.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Apparel) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ginza Yamagataya is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ginza Yamagataya to provide better information regarding Retail (Apparel) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ginza Yamagataya products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ginza Yamagataya needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ginza Yamagataya, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Apparel) 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ginza Yamagataya is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Apparel) industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Ginza Yamagataya strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Ginza Yamagataya Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ginza Yamagataya are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ginza Yamagataya is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ginza Yamagataya can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Apparel) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ginza Yamagataya can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Apparel) 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ginza Yamagataya to increase its market reach. Ginza Yamagataya 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.
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. Ginza Yamagataya can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Apparel) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ginza Yamagataya 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. Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ginza Yamagataya can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ginza Yamagataya operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Apparel) sector.
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 Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ginza Yamagataya in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Apparel) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ginza Yamagataya has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Apparel) industry. This can help Ginza Yamagataya to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ginza Yamagataya products in the Retail (Apparel) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Apparel) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ginza Yamagataya in the Retail (Apparel) industry. Now Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ginza Yamagataya are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Apparel) industry are lowering. It can presents Ginza Yamagataya with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Apparel) sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ginza Yamagataya has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Apparel) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ginza Yamagataya needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ginza Yamagataya 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 Retail (Apparel) industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ginza Yamagataya may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Apparel) sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ginza Yamagataya 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 Retail (Apparel) 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.
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 Ginza Yamagataya.
Increasing wage structure of Ginza Yamagataya
– 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 Ginza Yamagataya.
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. Ginza Yamagataya 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ginza Yamagataya in Retail (Apparel) industry. The Retail (Apparel) 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ginza Yamagataya is facing in Retail (Apparel) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya 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 Ginza Yamagataya needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
