SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Edinburgh Investment (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Edinburgh Investment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing energy prices, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Edinburgh Investment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Edinburgh Investment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Edinburgh Investment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Edinburgh Investment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Edinburgh Investment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Edinburgh Investment
Strengths of Edinburgh Investment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Edinburgh Investment are -
Organizational Resilience of Edinburgh Investment
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Edinburgh Investment does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Edinburgh Investment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Edinburgh Investment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Edinburgh Investment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Edinburgh Investment in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Edinburgh Investment has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Edinburgh Investment to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Edinburgh Investment has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Edinburgh Investment to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Edinburgh Investment 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
– Edinburgh Investment is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Edinburgh Investment 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
– Edinburgh Investment 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Edinburgh Investment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Edinburgh Investment 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.
Learning organization
- Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Edinburgh Investment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Edinburgh Investment 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
– Edinburgh Investment has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Edinburgh Investment are -
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 Edinburgh Investment supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Edinburgh Investment is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Edinburgh Investment vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Edinburgh Investment is just above the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Edinburgh Investment is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Edinburgh Investment strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Edinburgh Investment 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Edinburgh Investment is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Edinburgh Investment needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Edinburgh Investment to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Edinburgh Investment is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Edinburgh Investment has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Edinburgh Investment should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Edinburgh Investment is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Edinburgh Investment 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Edinburgh Investment, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Edinburgh Investment has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Edinburgh Investment 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.
Edinburgh Investment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Edinburgh Investment are -
Loyalty marketing
– Edinburgh Investment 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. Edinburgh Investment 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. Edinburgh Investment 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Edinburgh Investment to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Edinburgh Investment can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Edinburgh Investment 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Edinburgh Investment 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.
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 Edinburgh Investment in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Edinburgh Investment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Edinburgh Investment in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Edinburgh Investment can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services 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.
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 Edinburgh Investment 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Edinburgh Investment 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Edinburgh Investment can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial 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.
Threats Edinburgh Investment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Edinburgh Investment are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Edinburgh Investment has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Edinburgh Investment 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Edinburgh Investment 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.
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.
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. Edinburgh Investment 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.
Increasing wage structure of Edinburgh Investment
– 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 Edinburgh Investment.
Regulatory challenges
– Edinburgh Investment 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Edinburgh Investment 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.
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 Edinburgh Investment in the Misc. Financial Services 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 Edinburgh Investment.
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. Edinburgh Investment needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Edinburgh Investment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment 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 Edinburgh Investment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.