Toyo Ink Group Bhd (TOYG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Printing Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Toyo Ink Group Bhd (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Toyo Ink Group Bhd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Toyo Ink Group Bhd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Toyo Ink Group Bhd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Toyo Ink Group Bhd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Toyo Ink Group Bhd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Toyo Ink Group Bhd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Printing Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Toyo Ink Group Bhd
Strengths of Toyo Ink Group Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Toyo Ink Group Bhd are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Toyo Ink Group Bhd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Printing 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.
Training and development
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Toyo Ink Group Bhd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Printing Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Toyo Ink Group Bhd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Toyo Ink Group Bhd has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Organizational Resilience of Toyo Ink Group Bhd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Toyo Ink Group Bhd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing Services industry. This has provided Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Toyo Ink Group Bhd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Toyo Ink Group Bhd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Toyo Ink Group Bhd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Printing Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Toyo Ink Group Bhd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Weaknesses of Toyo Ink Group Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Toyo Ink Group Bhd are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Toyo Ink Group Bhd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Toyo Ink Group Bhd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Toyo Ink Group Bhd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Printing Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 dependence on Toyo Ink Group Bhd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Toyo Ink Group Bhd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Printing Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Toyo Ink Group Bhd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Toyo Ink Group Bhd has some of the most successful models in the Printing Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Toyo Ink Group Bhd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Toyo Ink Group Bhd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Printing 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Toyo Ink Group Bhd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Printing Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Toyo Ink Group Bhd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Printing Services industry, but Toyo Ink Group Bhd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Toyo Ink Group Bhd to focus more on services in the Printing Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Toyo Ink Group Bhd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Toyo Ink Group Bhd is just above the Printing 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Printing Services industry, Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Toyo Ink Group Bhd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Toyo Ink Group Bhd are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Toyo Ink Group Bhd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Toyo Ink Group Bhd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Printing Services industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Toyo Ink Group Bhd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing Services industry. This can help Toyo Ink Group Bhd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Toyo Ink Group Bhd products in the Printing Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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, Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Toyo Ink Group Bhd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Toyo Ink Group Bhd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing Services sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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. Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Toyo Ink Group Bhd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Toyo Ink Group Bhd can utilize new technology in the field of Printing Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Toyo Ink Group Bhd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Toyo Ink Group Bhd are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Toyo Ink Group Bhd in Printing Services industry. The Printing 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Environmental challenges
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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. Toyo Ink Group Bhd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing Services industry.
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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd in the Printing Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Toyo Ink Group Bhd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing 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.
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. Toyo Ink Group Bhd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Printing Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Printing Services industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Toyo Ink Group Bhd
– 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Printing Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Toyo Ink Group Bhd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Toyo Ink Group Bhd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
