First Growth Funds Ltd (FGF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for First Growth Funds Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , First Growth Funds Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of First Growth Funds Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that First Growth Funds Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the First Growth Funds Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of First Growth Funds Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of First Growth Funds Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of First Growth Funds Ltd
Strengths of First Growth Funds Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of First Growth Funds Ltd are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– First Growth Funds Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. First Growth Funds Ltd has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
High brand equity
– First Growth Funds Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled First Growth Funds Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– First Growth Funds Ltd is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– First Growth Funds Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of First Growth Funds Ltd in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. First Growth Funds Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps First Growth Funds Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For First Growth Funds Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. First Growth Funds Ltd 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 in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– First Growth Funds Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– First Growth Funds Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Learning organization
- First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at First Growth Funds Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of First Growth Funds Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of First Growth Funds Ltd are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As First Growth Funds Ltd is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at First Growth Funds Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. First Growth Funds Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, First Growth Funds Ltd 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, First Growth Funds Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help First Growth Funds Ltd to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as First Growth Funds Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, First Growth Funds Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, First Growth Funds Ltd 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of First Growth Funds Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services industry. 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of First Growth Funds Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, First Growth Funds Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left First Growth Funds Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
First Growth Funds Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of First Growth Funds Ltd are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, First Growth Funds Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of First Growth Funds Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help First Growth Funds Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for First Growth Funds Ltd products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – 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 First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help First Growth Funds Ltd to increase its market reach. First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– First Growth Funds Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled First Growth Funds Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help First Growth Funds Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– First Growth Funds Ltd 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, First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. First Growth Funds Ltd 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. First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Threats First Growth Funds Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of First Growth Funds Ltd are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
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. First Growth Funds Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
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 First Growth Funds Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 First Growth Funds Ltd in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 First Growth Funds Ltd.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– First Growth Funds Ltd 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. First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Increasing wage structure of First Growth Funds Ltd
– 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 First Growth Funds Ltd.
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. First Growth Funds Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that First Growth Funds Ltd is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– First Growth Funds Ltd 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. First Growth Funds Ltd 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of First Growth Funds Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd 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 First Growth Funds Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.