Swot Analysis of "Municipal Bond Structuring" written by Daniel B. Bergstresser, Randolph B. Cohen, Richard Ryffel includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Municipal Structuring facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Municipal Bond Structuring case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Policy, Strategic planning and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Municipal Bond Structuring casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Municipal Bond Structuring
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Municipal Bond Structuring case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Municipal Structuring, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Municipal Structuring 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 Municipal Bond Structuring can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Municipal Bond Structuring case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Municipal Structuring
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Municipal Structuring
Strengths Municipal Bond Structuring | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Municipal Structuring in Municipal Bond Structuring Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Municipal Structuring in the sector have low bargaining power. Municipal Bond Structuring has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Municipal Structuring to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Municipal Structuring digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Municipal Structuring 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Municipal Structuring 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.
Learning organization
- Municipal Structuring 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 Municipal Structuring is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Municipal Bond Structuring Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Municipal Structuring has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Municipal Bond Structuring Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Municipal Structuring is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Municipal Bond Structuring Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Municipal Structuring is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Municipal Bond Structuring case study 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Municipal Structuring has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Municipal Bond Structuring HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Municipal Structuring is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Municipal Structuring in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Municipal Structuring has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Municipal Structuring 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.
High brand equity
– Municipal Structuring has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Municipal Structuring to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Municipal Structuring has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Municipal Bond Structuring - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Municipal Bond Structuring | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Municipal Bond Structuring are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Municipal Structuring products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Municipal Structuring needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Daniel B. Bergstresser, Randolph B. Cohen, Richard Ryffel suggests that, Municipal Structuring 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 industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Municipal Bond Structuring HBR case study mentions - Municipal Structuring 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Municipal Structuring 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Municipal Bond Structuring, in the dynamic environment Municipal Structuring has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Municipal Structuring has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Municipal Structuring is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Municipal Bond Structuring can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Municipal Structuring, firm in the HBR case study Municipal Bond Structuring needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Municipal Structuring has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Municipal Structuring even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Municipal Structuring has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Municipal Bond Structuring should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Municipal Bond Structuring that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Municipal Bond Structuring can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Municipal Structuring is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Municipal Structuring 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.
Opportunities Municipal Bond Structuring | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Municipal Bond Structuring are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Municipal Structuring has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Municipal Structuring to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Municipal Bond Structuring case study. Municipal Structuring can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Municipal Structuring to increase its market reach. Municipal Structuring 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Municipal Structuring can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Municipal Structuring is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Municipal Bond Structuring case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology 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. Municipal Structuring can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Municipal Structuring 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Municipal Structuring 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. Municipal Structuring 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Municipal Structuring 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Municipal Structuring in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Municipal Structuring can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Municipal Structuring can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Municipal Structuring operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Municipal Structuring in the consumer business. Now Municipal Structuring can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Municipal Structuring 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 Municipal Structuring to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Municipal Bond Structuring External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Municipal Bond Structuring are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Municipal Structuring has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Municipal Structuring needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Municipal Structuring 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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Municipal Structuring.
Environmental challenges
– Municipal Structuring 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. Municipal Structuring can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Municipal Structuring will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Regulatory challenges
– Municipal Structuring 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Municipal Structuring can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Municipal Structuring with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Municipal Bond Structuring, Municipal Structuring may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Municipal Structuring in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
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 Municipal Structuring in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Municipal Structuring 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 field.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Municipal Bond Structuring Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Municipal Bond Structuring 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 the case study Municipal Bond Structuring 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 the Harvard case study Municipal Bond Structuring 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 Municipal Bond Structuring is 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 Municipal Structuring needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
