Analysis on global competitiveness of machine tools industry (A proposed quantitative SWOT analysis and its application)

Abstract

The strategic importance of global competitiveness of machine tools manufacturing industry in Japan is steadily increasing and machine tools manufacturers require effective corporate strategy to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis is one of the most effective approaches used for analyzing strategic management policy of an organizations. 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. By the proposed method, the industrial strategy planning for the machine tools manufacturing industry can be carried out using both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the SWOT factors.