SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Assiteca SpA Internazionale (Italy)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Assiteca SpA Internazionale is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Assiteca SpA Internazionale
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Assiteca SpA Internazionale can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Assiteca SpA Internazionale, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Assiteca SpA Internazionale
2. Improving business portfolio management of Assiteca SpA Internazionale
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Italy
4. Making a Insurance (Miscellaneous) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Assiteca SpA Internazionale
Strengths of Assiteca SpA Internazionale | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Assiteca SpA Internazionale are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale is present in almost all the verticals within the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry. This has provided Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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
- Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Assiteca SpA Internazionale emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Assiteca SpA Internazionale comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) 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 Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Assiteca SpA Internazionale digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Training and development
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Assiteca SpA Internazionale have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Assiteca SpA Internazionale
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Assiteca SpA Internazionale does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Assiteca SpA Internazionale to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Assiteca SpA Internazionale to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Assiteca SpA Internazionale staying ahead in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Assiteca SpA Internazionale | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Assiteca SpA Internazionale are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry, Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry, but Assiteca SpA Internazionale needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Assiteca SpA Internazionale to focus more on services in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Assiteca SpA Internazionale, in the dynamic environment of Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Assiteca SpA Internazionale has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Assiteca SpA Internazionale has high operating costs in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Assiteca SpA Internazionale lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Assiteca SpA Internazionale needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Assiteca SpA Internazionale can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Assiteca SpA Internazionale is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Assiteca SpA Internazionale has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Italy, Assiteca SpA Internazionale needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Assiteca SpA Internazionale, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Insurance (Miscellaneous) 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.
Skills based hiring in Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Assiteca SpA Internazionale Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Assiteca SpA Internazionale are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Insurance (Miscellaneous) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Assiteca SpA Internazionale to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Assiteca SpA Internazionale to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Assiteca SpA Internazionale in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry. Now Assiteca SpA Internazionale can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale can develop new processes and procedures in Insurance (Miscellaneous) 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Assiteca SpA Internazionale can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Assiteca SpA Internazionale to increase its market reach. Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Assiteca SpA Internazionale is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Assiteca SpA Internazionale can utilize new technology in the field of Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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. Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Threats Assiteca SpA Internazionale External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Assiteca SpA Internazionale are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Assiteca SpA Internazionale may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Insurance (Miscellaneous) sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry are lowering. It can presents Assiteca SpA Internazionale with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Insurance (Miscellaneous) sector.
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. Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry and other sectors.
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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Assiteca SpA Internazionale can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Assiteca SpA Internazionale
– 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale.
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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Assiteca SpA Internazionale has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Assiteca SpA Internazionale needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) 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.
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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale in the Insurance (Miscellaneous) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Assiteca SpA Internazionale Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale 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 Assiteca SpA Internazionale needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.