Tokyo Kiho (7597) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tokyo Kiho (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tokyo Kiho is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tokyo Kiho

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tokyo Kiho can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tokyo Kiho, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tokyo Kiho
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tokyo Kiho
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Jewelry & Silverware sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tokyo Kiho

---

Strengths of Tokyo Kiho | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Tokyo Kiho are -

Successful track record of launching new products

– Tokyo Kiho has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tokyo Kiho 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.

Analytics focus

– Tokyo Kiho 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 Jewelry & Silverware 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Tokyo Kiho is present in almost all the verticals within the Jewelry & Silverware industry. This has provided Tokyo Kiho 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Tokyo Kiho in Jewelry & Silverware industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Strong track record of project management in the Jewelry & Silverware industry

– Tokyo Kiho 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

– Tokyo Kiho is one of the most innovative firm in Jewelry & Silverware sector.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Tokyo Kiho comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Jewelry & Silverware 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Tokyo Kiho has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Jewelry & Silverware industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Tokyo Kiho have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Training and development

– Tokyo Kiho has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Tokyo Kiho has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Tokyo Kiho staying ahead in the Jewelry & Silverware industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Tokyo Kiho 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.

Learning organization

- Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tokyo Kiho emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

---

---

Weaknesses of Tokyo Kiho | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Tokyo Kiho are -

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Tokyo Kiho needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Jewelry & Silverware industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tokyo Kiho can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tokyo Kiho is planning to shift buying processes online.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Tokyo Kiho is one of the leading players in the Jewelry & Silverware industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Jewelry & Silverware industry in last five years.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tokyo Kiho has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Jewelry & Silverware industry over the last five years. Tokyo Kiho 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.

High dependence on Tokyo Kiho ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Tokyo Kiho still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Jewelry & Silverware industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Tokyo Kiho has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Japan, Tokyo Kiho needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Need for greater diversity

– Tokyo Kiho 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, Tokyo Kiho is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Tokyo Kiho to provide better information regarding Jewelry & Silverware products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Tokyo Kiho 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 Jewelry & Silverware industry using digital technology.

Skills based hiring in Jewelry & Silverware industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tokyo Kiho 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Jewelry & Silverware industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Tokyo Kiho 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 Jewelry & Silverware industry.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Tokyo Kiho, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Jewelry & Silverware 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.

---

Tokyo Kiho Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Tokyo Kiho are -

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tokyo Kiho 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Tokyo Kiho can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Jewelry & Silverware industry.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Tokyo Kiho has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Jewelry & Silverware industry. This can help Tokyo Kiho to build a more holistic ecosystem for Tokyo Kiho products in the Jewelry & Silverware 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 Jewelry & Silverware industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Tokyo Kiho in the Jewelry & Silverware industry. Now Tokyo Kiho 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, Tokyo Kiho can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tokyo Kiho operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Jewelry & Silverware sector.

Manufacturing automation

– Tokyo Kiho can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Jewelry & Silverware 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tokyo Kiho in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Jewelry & Silverware industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tokyo Kiho 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Tokyo Kiho 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.

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 Tokyo Kiho 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Tokyo Kiho has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Jewelry & Silverware sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Tokyo Kiho to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tokyo Kiho to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Jewelry & Silverware industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tokyo Kiho 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. Tokyo Kiho 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.

---

Threats Tokyo Kiho External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Tokyo Kiho are -

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 Tokyo Kiho business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tokyo Kiho in Jewelry & Silverware industry. The Jewelry & Silverware 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.

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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Tokyo Kiho may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Jewelry & Silverware sector.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Tokyo Kiho 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho prominent markets.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Tokyo Kiho is facing in Jewelry & Silverware sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Tokyo Kiho

– 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 Tokyo Kiho.

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 Tokyo Kiho.

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. Tokyo Kiho needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Jewelry & Silverware industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Jewelry & Silverware industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tokyo Kiho can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Tokyo Kiho has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Jewelry & Silverware industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tokyo Kiho needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Jewelry & Silverware 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.

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tokyo Kiho Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho 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 Tokyo Kiho needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

--- ---