問7
頻出度★★★
A社は, 事業戦略の見直しのため, SWOT分析によって, 内部環境と外部環境の分析を行った。内部環境の分析に該当するものとして, 最も適切なものはどれか。
平成23年度 特別試験 ITパスポート試験 問7
ストラテジ系経営戦略マネジメント › 経営戦略手法
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 7
Incorrectア
Identifying the characteristics of competing products is the act of examining another company's products rather than one's own, so the target of the analysis lies outside the company. A competitor's moves cannot be changed by the company's own will: if a strong competitor appears it is treated as a threat (T), and if an area where competitors are thin is found it is treated as an opportunity (O). This is therefore an analysis of the external environment, not of the internal environment. Note also that if the work advances to the stage of evaluating how the company's own products are better than the competition, that does become a matter of the internal environment, but this choice stops at the stage of identifying the competitor side's characteristics.
- イ
正解 The correct answer is イ. SWOT analysis is a method that captures the business environment along two axes, the internal environment and the external environment, and organizes them into four categories: strengths (S) as the positive side of the internal environment, weaknesses (W) as its negative side, opportunities (O) as the positive side of the external environment, and threats (T) as its negative side. It is used to help review a business strategy. The internal environment means the management resources that the company itself owns and can control by its own will. Technical capability, brand, people, facilities, sales networks, and financial characteristics such as the profit structure and the cost structure all fall into this category. The external environment, by contrast, refers to outside factors that the company cannot directly move through its own efforts, such as the market, customers, competitors, substitute goods, laws and regulations, and economic trends. So whether a given analysis is internal or external can simply be decided by asking whether the target lies inside the company or outside it. The contribution margin ratio in イ is the share of sales revenue accounted for by the contribution margin, which is sales revenue minus variable costs. It can be calculated from in-house accounting data alone, namely the selling price of the company's own products and variable costs such as material costs and outsourced processing costs. A high contribution margin ratio means a profit structure in which fixed costs are recovered faster and profit is easier to generate the more you sell, while a low one means a structure with little room for discounting and little ability to generate profit. In other words, grasping the contribution margin ratio is the act of showing in numbers the earning power of the company's own products, that is, its own particular business characteristics. That is exactly the work of identifying strengths and weaknesses, so it falls under the analysis of the internal environment. Therefore, the item that falls under the analysis of the internal environment is イ.
Incorrectウ
Investigating the market price is the act of examining the going rate, that is, at what price the product is traded in the market. Market prices are formed across the market as a whole by supply and demand and by competitors' pricing strategies, and are not something the company can set on its own. The target of the analysis is therefore the market itself, which lies outside the company, so it is classified as an analysis of the external environment. If the price in question were the company's own selling price built up from its costs, or its cost structure, that would be an analysis of the internal environment, but this choice is examining the price on the market side.
Incorrectエ
Conducting market research on substitute goods is the act of examining how well products or services that satisfy the same customer needs as one's own products by other means are being accepted in the market. The existence of substitutes is a typical threat (T) that can take away the company's sales, and in Five Forces analysis it is likewise positioned as an external competitive factor. The target of the research is the market outside the company, not the company's own management resources, so this is an analysis of the external environment and does not fall under the analysis of the internal environment.
ここがポイント
- The four quadrants of SWOT analysis and the internal/external split — the internal environment consists of management resources the company can control; its positive side is strengths (S) and its negative side is weaknesses (W). The external environment consists of the market, customers, competitors, substitute goods, laws and regulations and the like, which the company cannot control; its positive side is opportunities (O) and its negative side is threats (T). The judgment can be made mechanically by asking whether the target is inside or outside the company.
- Why the contribution margin ratio is an internal indicator — contribution margin = sales revenue − variable costs, and contribution margin ratio = contribution margin ÷ sales revenue. It can be obtained from in-house accounting data alone, namely the company's selling price and its variable costs, and it expresses the ability to recover fixed costs, that is, the company's profit-earning characteristics. It is therefore treated as an internal-environment indicator for measuring strengths and weaknesses.
用語