Blue Financial Communication SpA (BBLUE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Blue Financial Communication SpA (Italy)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blue Financial Communication SpA is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blue Financial Communication SpA
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Blue Financial Communication SpA can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blue Financial Communication SpA, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Blue Financial Communication SpA
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blue Financial Communication SpA
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Italy
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Blue Financial Communication SpA
Strengths of Blue Financial Communication SpA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blue Financial Communication SpA are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Blue Financial Communication SpA has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Blue Financial Communication SpA have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Blue Financial Communication SpA has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Blue Financial Communication SpA to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Blue Financial Communication SpA to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Blue Financial Communication SpA is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Blue Financial Communication SpA emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Blue Financial Communication SpA is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Organizational Resilience of Blue Financial Communication SpA
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Blue Financial Communication SpA does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Blue Financial Communication SpA is one of the leading players in the industry in Italy. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Italy. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Blue Financial Communication SpA has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Blue Financial Communication SpA staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in
– Blue Financial Communication SpA is one of the leading players in the industry in Italy. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in Italy but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Blue Financial Communication SpA in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Blue Financial Communication SpA has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blue Financial Communication SpA to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Blue Financial Communication SpA has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Weaknesses of Blue Financial Communication SpA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blue Financial Communication SpA are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Blue Financial Communication SpA has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Blue Financial Communication SpA, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Blue Financial Communication SpA is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blue Financial Communication SpA vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Blue Financial Communication SpA is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Blue Financial Communication SpA to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Blue Financial Communication SpA products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Blue Financial Communication SpA needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Blue Financial Communication SpA, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Blue Financial Communication SpA 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
– From the outside it seems that Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 at Blue Financial Communication SpA can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Blue Financial Communication SpA is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Italy, Blue Financial Communication SpA needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Blue Financial Communication SpA Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Blue Financial Communication SpA are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Blue Financial Communication SpA can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Blue Financial Communication SpA can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Blue Financial Communication SpA operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Blue Financial Communication SpA can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Blue Financial Communication SpA has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Blue Financial Communication SpA to build a more holistic ecosystem for Blue Financial Communication SpA products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Blue Financial Communication SpA can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blue Financial Communication SpA has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Blue Financial Communication SpA to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blue Financial Communication SpA to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Blue Financial Communication SpA to increase its market reach. Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Threats Blue Financial Communication SpA External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Blue Financial Communication SpA are -
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 Blue Financial Communication SpA in the 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 industry regulations.
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. Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Blue Financial Communication SpA has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Blue Financial Communication SpA needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Blue Financial Communication SpA with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Blue Financial Communication SpA 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Blue Financial Communication SpA may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Increasing wage structure of Blue Financial Communication SpA
– 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Blue Financial Communication SpA can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blue Financial Communication SpA Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA 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 Blue Financial Communication SpA needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.