Hachijuni Bank (HACBY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hachijuni Bank (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hachijuni Bank is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hachijuni Bank can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hachijuni Bank, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hachijuni Bank
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hachijuni Bank
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 Hachijuni Bank
Strengths of Hachijuni Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hachijuni Bank are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hachijuni Bank in the sector have low bargaining power. Hachijuni Bank has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hachijuni Bank to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Hachijuni Bank has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Analytics focus
– Hachijuni Bank 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Learning organization
- Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hachijuni Bank emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hachijuni Bank 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Hachijuni Bank has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hachijuni Bank 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hachijuni Bank is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Hachijuni Bank 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Hachijuni Bank has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hachijuni Bank to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hachijuni Bank to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Hachijuni Bank is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Hachijuni Bank 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hachijuni Bank 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 lead change in
– Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Hachijuni Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hachijuni Bank are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hachijuni Bank 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. Hachijuni Bank should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hachijuni Bank 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Hachijuni Bank strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Hachijuni Bank 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hachijuni Bank is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Hachijuni Bank, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Hachijuni Bank 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Hachijuni Bank 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.
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 Hachijuni Bank supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Hachijuni Bank is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hachijuni Bank vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Hachijuni Bank needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hachijuni Bank products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hachijuni Bank needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank lucrative customers.
Hachijuni Bank Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hachijuni Bank are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hachijuni Bank 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Hachijuni Bank 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
– Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hachijuni Bank 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. Hachijuni Bank 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hachijuni Bank can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Hachijuni Bank can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Hachijuni Bank in the industry. Now Hachijuni Bank can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hachijuni Bank has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Hachijuni Bank to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hachijuni Bank products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hachijuni Bank 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hachijuni Bank 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Hachijuni Bank External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hachijuni Bank are -
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 Hachijuni Bank in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hachijuni Bank 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hachijuni Bank 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Hachijuni Bank 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank prominent markets.
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 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. Hachijuni Bank needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Hachijuni Bank 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.
Environmental challenges
– Hachijuni Bank 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. Hachijuni Bank can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hachijuni Bank is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Hachijuni Bank business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hachijuni Bank has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hachijuni Bank 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hachijuni Bank Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank 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 Hachijuni Bank needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
