Ricoh Company (RICOY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Office Equipment
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ricoh Company (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ricoh Company is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ricoh Company can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ricoh Company, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ricoh Company
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ricoh Company
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Office Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ricoh Company
Strengths of Ricoh Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ricoh Company are -
Organizational Resilience of Ricoh Company
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ricoh Company does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ricoh Company has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Office Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ricoh Company have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ricoh Company 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Office Equipment industry
– Ricoh Company has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ricoh Company to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Office Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ricoh Company to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Ricoh Company is one of the most innovative firm in Office Equipment sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ricoh Company has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ricoh Company staying ahead in the Office Equipment 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 Ricoh Company in Office Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ricoh Company emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Office Equipment industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ricoh Company digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ricoh Company 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.
Analytics focus
– Ricoh Company 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 Office Equipment 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.
High brand equity
– Ricoh Company has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ricoh Company to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Ricoh Company has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Weaknesses of Ricoh Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ricoh Company are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ricoh Company is just above the Office Equipment 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 Ricoh Company ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ricoh Company still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Office Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ricoh Company has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ricoh Company is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Office Equipment industry, but Ricoh Company needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ricoh Company to focus more on services in the Office Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ricoh Company has some of the most successful models in the Office Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ricoh Company should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Ricoh Company supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ricoh Company is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ricoh Company vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ricoh Company needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Office Equipment industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ricoh Company can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ricoh Company is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ricoh Company products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ricoh Company needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Office Equipment industry, Ricoh Company 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.
Skills based hiring in Office Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ricoh Company 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ricoh Company is one of the leading players in the Office Equipment industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Office Equipment industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Office Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ricoh Company 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 Office Equipment industry.
Ricoh Company Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ricoh Company are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ricoh Company is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ricoh Company can utilize new technology in the field of Office Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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. Ricoh Company can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ricoh Company 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, Ricoh Company can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ricoh Company operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Office Equipment sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ricoh Company has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Office Equipment industry. This can help Ricoh Company to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ricoh Company products in the Office Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ricoh Company to increase its market reach. Ricoh Company 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ricoh Company has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Office Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ricoh Company to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ricoh Company to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Ricoh Company can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Office Equipment 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 Ricoh Company can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ricoh Company in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Office Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ricoh Company 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 Office Equipment industry.
Threats Ricoh Company External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ricoh Company are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ricoh Company is facing in Office Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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.
Increasing wage structure of Ricoh Company
– 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 Ricoh Company.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ricoh Company 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 Office Equipment industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ricoh Company 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.
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. Ricoh Company needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Office Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Office Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ricoh Company can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ricoh Company in Office Equipment industry. The Office Equipment 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Office Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Ricoh Company with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Office Equipment sector.
Environmental challenges
– Ricoh Company 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. Ricoh Company can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Office Equipment 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 Ricoh Company in the Office Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ricoh Company 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 Office Equipment industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ricoh Company Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company 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 Ricoh Company needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.