Aurora Dividend Income Trust (AOD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Aurora Dividend Income Trust (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Aurora Dividend Income Trust is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Aurora Dividend Income Trust
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Aurora Dividend Income Trust can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Aurora Dividend Income Trust, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Aurora Dividend Income Trust
2. Improving business portfolio management of Aurora Dividend Income Trust
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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust
Strengths of Aurora Dividend Income Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Aurora Dividend Income Trust are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Aurora Dividend Income Trust in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Aurora Dividend Income Trust in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Aurora Dividend Income Trust in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Aurora Dividend Income Trust has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Aurora Dividend Income Trust to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Aurora Dividend Income Trust
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Aurora Dividend Income Trust does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Aurora Dividend Income Trust emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Training and development
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Aurora Dividend Income Trust are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Aurora Dividend Income Trust, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Aurora Dividend Income Trust is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Aurora Dividend Income Trust products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Aurora Dividend Income Trust needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Aurora Dividend Income Trust strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Aurora Dividend Income Trust has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Aurora Dividend Income Trust lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Aurora Dividend Income Trust needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Aurora Dividend Income Trust is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
High dependence on Aurora Dividend Income Trust ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Aurora Dividend Income Trust still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Aurora Dividend Income Trust has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Aurora Dividend Income Trust has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aurora Dividend Income Trust Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Aurora Dividend Income Trust are -
Loyalty marketing
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
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. Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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. Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Aurora Dividend Income Trust to increase its market reach. Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Aurora Dividend Income Trust in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Aurora Dividend Income Trust can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Aurora Dividend Income Trust has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Aurora Dividend Income Trust to build a more holistic ecosystem for Aurora Dividend Income Trust products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Aurora Dividend Income Trust can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Aurora Dividend Income Trust operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Aurora Dividend Income Trust to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Aurora Dividend Income Trust can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Aurora Dividend Income Trust External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Aurora Dividend Income Trust are -
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. Aurora Dividend Income Trust can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Aurora Dividend Income Trust in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Aurora Dividend Income Trust with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Aurora Dividend Income Trust needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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. Aurora Dividend Income Trust can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Aurora Dividend Income Trust is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Aurora Dividend Income Trust
– 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Aurora Dividend Income Trust Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust 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 Aurora Dividend Income Trust needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
