SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eurasia Travel (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eurasia Travel is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eurasia Travel can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eurasia Travel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eurasia Travel
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eurasia Travel
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 Eurasia Travel
Strengths of Eurasia Travel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eurasia Travel are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eurasia Travel in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eurasia Travel comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Personal 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Eurasia Travel has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eurasia Travel 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.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eurasia Travel 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.
Analytics focus
– Eurasia Travel 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.
High brand equity
– Eurasia Travel has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eurasia Travel to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry
– Eurasia Travel is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eurasia Travel is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Eurasia Travel a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eurasia Travel in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Eurasia Travel has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eurasia Travel to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eurasia Travel is one of the leading players in the Personal 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 Eurasia Travel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eurasia Travel are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Eurasia Travel 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eurasia Travel needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Eurasia Travel can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eurasia Travel is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eurasia Travel is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Eurasia Travel needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eurasia Travel to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Eurasia Travel strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eurasia Travel 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.
High dependence on Eurasia Travel ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eurasia Travel still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eurasia Travel has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Eurasia Travel products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Eurasia Travel needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eurasia Travel has some of the most successful models in the Personal Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Eurasia Travel should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eurasia Travel 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Eurasia Travel is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Eurasia Travel to provide better information regarding Personal Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Eurasia Travel 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.
Eurasia Travel Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eurasia Travel are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eurasia Travel to increase its market reach. Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eurasia Travel can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eurasia Travel operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Eurasia Travel 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.
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 Eurasia Travel 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Eurasia Travel 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Eurasia Travel 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eurasia Travel is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Eurasia Travel 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.
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 Eurasia Travel in the Personal Services industry. Now Eurasia Travel can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eurasia Travel has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Personal Services industry. This can help Eurasia Travel to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eurasia Travel products in the Personal Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Eurasia Travel can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Eurasia Travel External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eurasia Travel are -
Environmental challenges
– Eurasia Travel 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. Eurasia Travel can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eurasia Travel may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal Services sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eurasia Travel 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 Personal Services industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eurasia Travel is facing in Personal Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Eurasia Travel.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Eurasia Travel with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Eurasia Travel can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eurasia Travel 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. Eurasia Travel needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eurasia Travel 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.
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 Eurasia Travel in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eurasia Travel Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel 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 Eurasia Travel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.