Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry
The work of CMG Life Services provides a window into the life settlement industry, showing the difficulties that one young company faces in trying to solve a market failure. This case uses CMG's strategic dilemma to both illuminate the mechanics of a small, inefficient market and show how the success or failure of a market can sometimes depend on more than intrinsic value. The case lays out disagreement about the future of the industry, and even within the industry as key players differ on the most promising path forward. Ultimately, the promise of the life-settlement market for both insurance policy holders and investors may not be realized, and the case lays out the strategic impasse and key factors that will dictate its resolution.
Swot Analysis of "Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry" written by Lauren H. Cohen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cmg Life facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cmg Life, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cmg Life 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cmg Life
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 Cmg Life
Strengths Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cmg Life in Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Cmg Life has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cmg Life to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cmg Life 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.
Training and development
– Cmg Life has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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
– Cmg Life is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cmg Life in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cmg Life is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cmg Life is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cmg Life to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cmg Life to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Analytics focus
– Cmg Life 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 industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Lauren H. Cohen can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Cmg Life 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 Cmg Life in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cmg Life 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry - 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Lauren H. Cohen suggests that, Cmg Life 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cmg Life products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cmg Life 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 segment, Cmg Life 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cmg Life is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Cmg Life has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry, is just above the industry average. Cmg Life 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cmg Life 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. Cmg Life 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cmg Life is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Cmg Life needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cmg Life to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry HBR case study mentions - Cmg Life 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cmg Life 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.
Opportunities Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry | 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry are -
Manufacturing automation
– Cmg Life 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.
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 Cmg Life in the consumer business. Now Cmg Life can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cmg Life to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cmg Life 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 Cmg Life to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cmg Life has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cmg Life to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Cmg Life 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cmg Life 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cmg Life 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cmg Life is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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.
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. Cmg Life 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. Cmg Life 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cmg Life 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cmg Life can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Cmg Life can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry suggest that firm 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.
Threats Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cmg Life with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Cmg Life needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Cmg Life 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. Cmg Life can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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. Cmg Life can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cmg Life 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.
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. Cmg Life 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cmg Life is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cmg Life 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 prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry .
Increasing wage structure of Cmg Life
– 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 Cmg Life.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Cmg Life business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cmg Life 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cmg Life 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 the industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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 Seeking Alpha in the Afterlife: CMG Life Services and the Life Settlement Industry 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 Cmg Life needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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