SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kobayashi Yoko (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kobayashi Yoko is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kobayashi Yoko can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kobayashi Yoko, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kobayashi Yoko
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kobayashi Yoko
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kobayashi Yoko
Strengths of Kobayashi Yoko | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kobayashi Yoko are -
Ability to lead change in Investment Services
– Kobayashi Yoko is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kobayashi Yoko in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kobayashi Yoko in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Kobayashi Yoko has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kobayashi Yoko to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kobayashi Yoko 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
– Kobayashi Yoko has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kobayashi Yoko has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry
– Kobayashi Yoko has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kobayashi Yoko to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Investment Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kobayashi Yoko to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Kobayashi Yoko has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kobayashi Yoko to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Kobayashi Yoko
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kobayashi Yoko does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kobayashi Yoko digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kobayashi Yoko 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 Investment Services industry
– Kobayashi Yoko is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kobayashi Yoko has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kobayashi Yoko have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kobayashi Yoko is one of the leading players in the Investment Services 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 Kobayashi Yoko | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kobayashi Yoko are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Kobayashi Yoko 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, Kobayashi Yoko has high operating costs in the Investment Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kobayashi Yoko lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Kobayashi Yoko needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Kobayashi Yoko can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kobayashi Yoko is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kobayashi Yoko is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kobayashi Yoko to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Kobayashi Yoko ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Kobayashi Yoko still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Investment Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Kobayashi Yoko has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kobayashi Yoko products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kobayashi Yoko needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kobayashi Yoko is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Investment Services industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kobayashi Yoko, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kobayashi Yoko has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Kobayashi Yoko strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko has some of the most successful models in the Investment Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kobayashi Yoko should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Kobayashi Yoko Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kobayashi Yoko are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kobayashi Yoko 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. Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kobayashi Yoko has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kobayashi Yoko to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kobayashi Yoko to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kobayashi Yoko can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kobayashi Yoko operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services 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 Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kobayashi Yoko to increase its market reach. Kobayashi Yoko 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. Kobayashi Yoko can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Kobayashi Yoko can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Investment 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Kobayashi Yoko can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Investment 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kobayashi Yoko can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Threats Kobayashi Yoko External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kobayashi Yoko are -
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. Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kobayashi Yoko is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko prominent markets.
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 Kobayashi Yoko.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Investment Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kobayashi Yoko can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kobayashi Yoko has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kobayashi Yoko needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Investment 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kobayashi Yoko 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 Investment Services industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Investment Services industry are lowering. It can presents Kobayashi Yoko with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Investment Services sector.
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. Kobayashi Yoko needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kobayashi Yoko 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kobayashi Yoko may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Investment Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kobayashi Yoko in Investment Services industry. The Investment 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kobayashi Yoko Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko 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 Kobayashi Yoko needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.