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Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund


In 2001, Bank Leu, a Swiss private bank, is considering creating the world's first public fund for catastrophe bonds. Cat bonds are securities whose payments depend on the probability of a catastrophe occurring, such as an earthquake or hurricane. Cat bonds are traditionally issued by large insurance or reinsurance companies. This case outlines the traditional reinsurance market and securitization efforts that have taken place in the past and focuses on Bank Leu's decision as a buy-side participant in the cat bond market.

Authors :: George Chacko, Vincent Dessain, Anders Sjoman, Adam Plotkin

Topics :: Finance & Accounting

Tags :: Financial management, Financial markets, Risk management, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund" written by George Chacko, Vincent Dessain, Anders Sjoman, Adam Plotkin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cat Leu's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Financial markets, Risk management and Finance & Accounting.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cat Leu's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cat Leu's 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cat Leu's
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 Cat Leu's




Strengths Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Cat Leu's in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund Harvard Business Review case study are -

Ability to recruit top talent

– Cat Leu's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cat Leu's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cat Leu's 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.

Strong track record of project management

– Cat Leu's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Diverse revenue streams

– Cat Leu's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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.

Learning organization

- Cat Leu's 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 Cat Leu's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Training and development

– Cat Leu's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Cat Leu's 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Cat Leu's in the sector have low bargaining power. Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cat Leu's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Organizational Resilience of Cat Leu's

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cat Leu's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Cat Leu's 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Cat Leu's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry

– Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cat Leu's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cat Leu's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.






Weaknesses Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund are -

No frontier risks strategy

– After analyzing the HBR case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund, 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Cat Leu's, firm in the HBR case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Cat Leu's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Cat Leu's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cat Leu's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Cat Leu's 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.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund, it seems that the employees of Cat Leu's don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Cat Leu's 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Cat Leu's 's lucrative customers.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cat Leu's 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund, in the dynamic environment Cat Leu's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cat Leu's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Aligning sales with marketing

– It come across in the case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cat Leu's is planning to shift buying processes online.

Lack of clear differentiation of Cat Leu's products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cat Leu's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.




Opportunities Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund | 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Cat Leu's 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, Cat Leu's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cat Leu's 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 Cat Leu's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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. Cat Leu's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Loyalty marketing

– Cat Leu's 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cat Leu's 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Cat Leu's 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Cat Leu's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Cat Leu's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund case study. Cat Leu's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Reconfiguring business model

– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Cat Leu's to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.

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. Cat Leu's 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. Cat Leu's 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cat Leu's to increase its market reach. Cat Leu's 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.

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. Cat Leu's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Cat Leu's 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cat Leu's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.




Threats Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund are -

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Cat Leu's is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cat Leu's 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Cat Leu's 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund, Cat Leu's 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 .

Consumer confidence and its impact on Cat Leu's 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Cat Leu's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cat Leu's 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.

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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cat Leu's 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund .

Environmental challenges

– Cat Leu's 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. Cat Leu's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.

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 Cat Leu's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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. Cat Leu's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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 Cat Leu's in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cat Leu's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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 Bank Leu's Prima Cat Bond Fund 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 Cat Leu's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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