FIBI (FTIN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Money Center Banks
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for FIBI (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , FIBI is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that FIBI can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the FIBI, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which FIBI 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 FIBI can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of FIBI
2. Improving business portfolio management of FIBI
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Money Center Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of FIBI
Strengths of FIBI | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of FIBI are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– FIBI is one of the leading players in the Money Center Banks industry in Israel. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Israel. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– FIBI has one of the best training and development program in Financial industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Money Center Banks industry
– FIBI has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled FIBI to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Money Center Banks industry. The sustainable margins have also helped FIBI to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– FIBI is one of the most innovative firm in Money Center Banks sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of FIBI in Money Center Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– FIBI has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – FIBI staying ahead in the Money Center Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- FIBI 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 FIBI is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at FIBI emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that FIBI 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the FIBI 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.
Ability to lead change in Money Center Banks
– FIBI is one of the leading players in the Money Center Banks industry in Israel. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Money Center Banks industry in Israel but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled FIBI in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of FIBI comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Money Center Banks 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– FIBI has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Money Center Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of FIBI have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of FIBI | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of FIBI are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, FIBI 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.
Employees’ less understanding of FIBI strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of FIBI 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Money Center Banks industry, FIBI 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Israel, FIBI needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Money Center Banks industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at FIBI 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though FIBI has some of the most successful models in the Money Center Banks industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. FIBI should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that FIBI needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Money Center Banks industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at FIBI can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as FIBI is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As FIBI is one of the leading players in the Money Center Banks industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Money Center Banks industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of FIBI is just above the Money Center Banks 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Money Center Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, FIBI 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 Money Center Banks industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, FIBI is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help FIBI to provide better information regarding Money Center Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
FIBI Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of FIBI are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– FIBI 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for FIBI in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Money Center Banks industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– FIBI can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Money Center Banks 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.
Loyalty marketing
– FIBI 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects FIBI can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for FIBI 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 FIBI 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 Money Center Banks industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, FIBI is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. FIBI can utilize new technology in the field of Money Center Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, FIBI can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that FIBI operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Money Center Banks sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– FIBI can develop new processes and procedures in Money Center Banks 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, FIBI 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of FIBI has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Money Center Banks industry. This can help FIBI to build a more holistic ecosystem for FIBI products in the Money Center Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– FIBI can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Money Center Banks 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.
Threats FIBI External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of FIBI are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for FIBI in Money Center Banks industry. The Money Center Banks 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.
Increasing wage structure of FIBI
– 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 FIBI.
Consumer confidence and its impact on FIBI 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 Money Center Banks industry and other sectors.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– FIBI 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 Money Center Banks industry.
Environmental challenges
– FIBI 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. FIBI can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Money Center Banks industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Money Center Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. FIBI 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 to Money Center Banks industry are lowering. It can presents FIBI with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Money Center Banks sector.
Regulatory challenges
– FIBI 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 Money Center Banks industry regulations.
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 FIBI business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. FIBI 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 FIBI is facing in Money Center Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 FIBI.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of FIBI Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at FIBI 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 FIBI 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 FIBI 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 FIBI 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 FIBI needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.