East Japan Railway ADR (EJPRY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for East Japan Railway ADR (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , East Japan Railway ADR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of East Japan Railway ADR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that East Japan Railway ADR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the East Japan Railway ADR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which East Japan Railway ADR 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 East Japan Railway ADR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of East Japan Railway ADR
2. Improving business portfolio management of East Japan Railway ADR
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of East Japan Railway ADR
Strengths of East Japan Railway ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of East Japan Railway ADR are -
Ability to lead change in
– East Japan Railway ADR is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled East Japan Railway ADR in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– East Japan Railway ADR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Learning organization
- East Japan Railway ADR 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 East Japan Railway ADR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at East Japan Railway ADR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– East Japan Railway ADR is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– East Japan Railway ADR has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of East Japan Railway ADR have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For East Japan Railway ADR digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Organizational Resilience of East Japan Railway ADR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing East Japan Railway ADR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– East Japan Railway ADR has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled East Japan Railway ADR to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– East Japan Railway ADR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – East Japan Railway ADR staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of East Japan Railway ADR in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– East Japan Railway ADR is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– East Japan Railway ADR is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of East Japan Railway ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of East Japan Railway ADR are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Need for greater diversity
– East Japan Railway ADR 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, East Japan Railway ADR has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Employees’ less understanding of East Japan Railway ADR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of East Japan Railway ADR 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
East Japan Railway ADR has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though East Japan Railway ADR has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. East Japan Railway ADR should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on East Japan Railway ADR ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of East Japan Railway ADR still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though East Japan Railway ADR has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of East Japan Railway ADR is just above the 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, East Japan Railway ADR is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help East Japan Railway ADR to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, East Japan Railway ADR has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract East Japan Railway ADR lucrative customers.
East Japan Railway ADR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of East Japan Railway ADR are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of East Japan Railway ADR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help East Japan Railway ADR to build a more holistic ecosystem for East Japan Railway ADR products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at East Japan Railway ADR 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 industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– East Japan Railway ADR can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for East Japan Railway ADR in the industry. Now East Japan Railway ADR can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. East Japan Railway ADR can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– East Japan Railway ADR has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled East Japan Railway ADR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help East Japan Railway ADR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for East Japan Railway ADR 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.
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 East Japan Railway ADR 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.
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. East Japan Railway ADR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– East Japan Railway ADR can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for East Japan Railway ADR in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats East Japan Railway ADR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of East Japan Railway ADR are -
Increasing wage structure of East Japan Railway ADR
– 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 East Japan Railway ADR.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that East Japan Railway ADR is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– East Japan Railway ADR 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 industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– East Japan Railway ADR has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, East Japan Railway ADR needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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
– East Japan Railway ADR 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 industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for East Japan Railway ADR in industry. The 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. East Japan Railway ADR can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 East Japan Railway ADR.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents East Japan Railway ADR with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 East Japan Railway ADR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on East Japan Railway ADR 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 industry and other sectors.
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. East Japan Railway ADR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of East Japan Railway ADR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at East Japan Railway ADR 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 East Japan Railway ADR 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 East Japan Railway ADR 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 East Japan Railway ADR 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 East Japan Railway ADR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
