Quantitative SWOT analysis on global competitiveness of machine tool industry

Abstract

Abstract The strategic importance of global competitiveness of the machine tool industry in Japan is steadily increasing, and therefore machine tool manufacturers require effective corporate strategy to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis is one of the most effective approaches used for analysing strategic management policy of an organization. However, the use of conventional SWOT analysis is based on the qualitative analysis and has no means of determining the importance of each SWOT factor. In this study, a newly structured SWOT analysis has been proposed for weighting and rating individual SWOT factors using the pairwise comparison matrices. As a result, effective industrial strategy planning for the machine tool industry can be carried out by applying the proposed method. Keywords: Product developmentProduct designMachine toolStrategic planningGlobal competitivenessSWOT analysisAnalytic Hierarchy Process Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank the members of JMTBA participating in this study, particularly the members of the research committee on industrial technology strategy of machine tool industry organized in 2002.