Future Venture Capital (8462) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Future Venture Capital (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Future Venture Capital is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Future Venture Capital

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Future Venture Capital can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Future Venture Capital, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Future Venture Capital 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Future Venture Capital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Future Venture Capital
2. Improving business portfolio management of Future Venture Capital
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Future Venture Capital

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Strengths of Future Venture Capital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Future Venture Capital are -

Learning organization

- Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Future Venture Capital emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Future Venture Capital comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment 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.

Ability to lead change in Investment Services

– Future Venture Capital is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Future Venture Capital in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry

– Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital 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.

High brand equity

– Future Venture Capital has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Future Venture Capital to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Future Venture Capital has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Future Venture Capital have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Future Venture Capital digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Future Venture Capital 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Future Venture Capital is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Future Venture Capital has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Future Venture Capital 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Future Venture Capital has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Future Venture Capital staying ahead in the Investment Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Future Venture Capital in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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Weaknesses of Future Venture Capital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Future Venture Capital are -

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Future Venture Capital has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Investment Services industry over the last five years. Future Venture Capital 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Future Venture Capital is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Future Venture Capital vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Future Venture Capital has high operating costs in the Investment Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Future Venture Capital lucrative customers.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Future Venture Capital has some of the most successful models in the Investment Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Future Venture Capital should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Future Venture Capital, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Investment 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Future Venture Capital is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Future Venture Capital needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Future Venture Capital to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Future Venture Capital 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Future Venture Capital products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Future Venture Capital needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Investment Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Future Venture Capital 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 Investment Services industry.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Future Venture Capital, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Future Venture Capital has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

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Future Venture Capital Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Future Venture Capital are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Future Venture Capital 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Future Venture Capital has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Future Venture Capital to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Future Venture Capital to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Future Venture Capital in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Investment Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Buying journey improvements

– Future Venture Capital can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Investment Services 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Future Venture Capital 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Future Venture Capital 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.

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 Future Venture Capital 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Future Venture Capital 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 Investment Services industry.

Manufacturing automation

– Future Venture Capital can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Investment Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Identify volunteer opportunities

– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Future Venture Capital can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Future Venture Capital to increase its market reach. Future Venture Capital 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Investment Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Future Venture Capital can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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Threats Future Venture Capital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Future Venture Capital are -

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. Future Venture Capital 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Investment Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Future Venture Capital can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. Future Venture Capital needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Future Venture Capital is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Future Venture Capital 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 Investment Services industry and other sectors.

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 Future Venture Capital in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Future Venture Capital 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 Investment Services industry.

Increasing wage structure of Future Venture Capital

– 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 Future Venture Capital.

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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Future Venture Capital may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Investment Services sector.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Future Venture Capital 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.

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 Future Venture Capital business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Future Venture Capital Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital 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 Future Venture Capital needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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