SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for UBA Investments (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , UBA Investments is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that UBA Investments can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the UBA Investments, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of UBA Investments
2. Improving business portfolio management of UBA Investments
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of UBA Investments
Strengths of UBA Investments | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of UBA Investments are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that UBA Investments 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
- UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at UBA Investments emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the UBA Investments 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.
High brand equity
– UBA Investments has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled UBA Investments to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of UBA Investments
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing UBA Investments does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For UBA Investments digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. UBA Investments 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of UBA Investments comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of UBA Investments in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– UBA Investments is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled UBA Investments 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)
– UBA Investments has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – UBA Investments staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of UBA Investments in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. UBA Investments has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps UBA Investments to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– UBA Investments is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided UBA Investments 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.
Weaknesses of UBA Investments | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of UBA Investments are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of UBA Investments is just above the Misc. Financial Services industry average. It 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, UBA Investments has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. UBA Investments 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, UBA Investments 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of UBA Investments is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but UBA Investments needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help UBA Investments to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, UBA Investments needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that UBA Investments needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at UBA Investments can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as UBA Investments is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of UBA Investments strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of UBA Investments 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though UBA Investments has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. UBA Investments should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– UBA Investments 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.
High dependence on UBA Investments ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of UBA Investments still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though UBA Investments has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at UBA Investments 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.
UBA Investments Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of UBA Investments are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– UBA Investments 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. UBA Investments can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– UBA Investments can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. UBA Investments 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
– UBA Investments 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of UBA Investments has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help UBA Investments to build a more holistic ecosystem for UBA Investments products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, UBA Investments is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. UBA Investments can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for UBA Investments in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now UBA Investments can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– UBA Investments can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services sector. 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– UBA Investments can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, UBA Investments can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help UBA Investments to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for UBA Investments in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats UBA Investments External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of UBA Investments are -
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 UBA Investments.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents UBA Investments with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– UBA Investments 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Environmental challenges
– UBA Investments 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. UBA Investments can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on UBA Investments 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. UBA Investments can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, UBA Investments may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for UBA Investments in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services 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.
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 UBA Investments business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that UBA Investments is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of UBA Investments Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments 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 UBA Investments needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.