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 – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, 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 -
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.
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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Toyo Ink Group Bhd staying ahead in the Printing Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd is one of the most innovative firm in Printing Services sector.
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.
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.
Strong track record of project management in the Printing Services industry
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Printing Services
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Printing Services industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Toyo Ink Group Bhd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing Services industry
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Toyo Ink Group Bhd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Toyo Ink Group Bhd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Printing Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia 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.
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.
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 -
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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Toyo Ink Group Bhd is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Printing Services industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Toyo Ink Group Bhd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Toyo Ink Group Bhd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Printing Services industry over the last five years. Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Toyo Ink Group Bhd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Toyo Ink Group Bhd to provide better information regarding Printing Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Toyo Ink Group Bhd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Printing Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Toyo Ink Group Bhd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Toyo Ink Group Bhd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Toyo Ink Group Bhd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Toyo Ink Group Bhd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Toyo Ink Group Bhd has high operating costs in the Printing Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Toyo Ink Group Bhd lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Printing Services industry.
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.
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 -
Buying journey improvements
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Printing 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.
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.
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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Printing Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Toyo Ink Group Bhd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Toyo Ink Group Bhd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Printing Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Toyo Ink Group Bhd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Toyo Ink Group Bhd to increase its market reach. Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd can develop new processes and procedures in Printing Services 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.
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 -
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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Toyo Ink Group Bhd is facing in Printing Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Toyo Ink Group Bhd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Printing Services sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Printing Services industry regulations.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Toyo Ink Group Bhd prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Toyo Ink Group Bhd 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 Printing Services industry.
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.