Unipol Gruppo (0Q6M) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Insurance (Prop. & Casualty)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Unipol Gruppo (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Unipol Gruppo is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Unipol Gruppo can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Unipol Gruppo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Unipol Gruppo
2. Improving business portfolio management of Unipol Gruppo
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Unipol Gruppo
Strengths of Unipol Gruppo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Unipol Gruppo are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Unipol Gruppo has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Unipol Gruppo 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.
Learning organization
- Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Unipol Gruppo emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Unipol Gruppo
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Unipol Gruppo does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Unipol Gruppo is one of the most innovative firm in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry
– Unipol Gruppo has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Unipol Gruppo to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Unipol Gruppo to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Unipol Gruppo has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Unipol Gruppo have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Unipol Gruppo 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Unipol Gruppo 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.
Training and development
– Unipol Gruppo 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Unipol Gruppo comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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 recruit top talent
– Unipol Gruppo is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Unipol Gruppo has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Unipol Gruppo to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Unipol Gruppo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Unipol Gruppo are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Unipol Gruppo products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Unipol Gruppo needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Unipol Gruppo needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Unipol Gruppo can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Unipol Gruppo is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Unipol Gruppo 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Unipol Gruppo is just above the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Unipol Gruppo, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Unipol Gruppo 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Unipol Gruppo is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Unipol Gruppo to provide better information regarding Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Unipol Gruppo, in the dynamic environment of Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Unipol Gruppo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Unipol Gruppo 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.
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 Unipol Gruppo supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Unipol Gruppo is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Unipol Gruppo vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, Unipol Gruppo 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.
Unipol Gruppo Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Unipol Gruppo are -
Loyalty marketing
– Unipol Gruppo 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Unipol Gruppo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This can help Unipol Gruppo to build a more holistic ecosystem for Unipol Gruppo products in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Unipol Gruppo can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Unipol Gruppo 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. Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Unipol Gruppo can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Unipol Gruppo 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 (Prop. & Casualty) industry.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Unipol Gruppo can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Unipol Gruppo can develop new processes and procedures in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Unipol Gruppo in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Unipol Gruppo to increase its market reach. Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Unipol Gruppo are -
Environmental challenges
– Unipol Gruppo 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. Unipol Gruppo can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry.
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. Unipol Gruppo needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Unipol Gruppo 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 (Prop. & Casualty) sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Unipol Gruppo 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 (Prop. & Casualty) industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Unipol Gruppo in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. The Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Unipol Gruppo can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Unipol Gruppo is facing in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. Unipol Gruppo 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.
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 Unipol Gruppo business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Unipol Gruppo
– 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 Unipol Gruppo.
Regulatory challenges
– Unipol Gruppo 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 (Prop. & Casualty) industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Unipol Gruppo Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo 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 Unipol Gruppo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.