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 – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, 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 -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of East Japan Railway ADR comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
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.
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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– East Japan Railway ADR has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled East Japan Railway ADR to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped East Japan Railway ADR to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the East Japan Railway ADR 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.
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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– East Japan Railway ADR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, East Japan Railway ADR 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 industry.
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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that East Japan Railway ADR needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at East Japan Railway ADR can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as East Japan Railway ADR is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, East Japan Railway ADR 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 industry using digital technology.
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.
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.
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.
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 East Japan Railway ADR supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, East Japan Railway ADR is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left East Japan Railway ADR vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of East Japan Railway ADR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, East Japan Railway ADR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of East Japan Railway ADR is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but East Japan Railway ADR needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help East Japan Railway ADR to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, East Japan Railway ADR 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects East Japan Railway ADR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help East Japan Railway ADR to increase its market reach. East Japan Railway ADR 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.
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.
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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, East Japan Railway ADR is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. East Japan Railway ADR can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, East Japan Railway ADR 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 East Japan Railway ADR prominent markets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 East Japan Railway ADR business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, East Japan Railway ADR may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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.