National Bank of Greece (0RCR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for National Bank of Greece (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , National Bank of Greece is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of National Bank of Greece

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that National Bank of Greece can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the National Bank of Greece, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which National Bank of Greece 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 National Bank of Greece can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of National Bank of Greece
2. Improving business portfolio management of National Bank of Greece
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of National Bank of Greece

---

Strengths of National Bank of Greece | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of National Bank of Greece are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of National Bank of Greece comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that National Bank of Greece 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of National Bank of Greece in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

– National Bank of Greece has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled National Bank of Greece to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Learning organization

- National Bank of Greece 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 National Bank of Greece is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at National Bank of Greece emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Innovation driven organization

– National Bank of Greece is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.

Ability to recruit top talent

– National Bank of Greece is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– National Bank of Greece is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided National Bank of Greece 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 Regional Banks industry

– National Bank of Greece is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Analytics focus

– National Bank of Greece is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Regional Banks industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.

Training and development

– National Bank of Greece 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 National Bank of Greece | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of National Bank of Greece are -

Need for greater diversity

– National Bank of Greece 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, National Bank of Greece needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, National Bank of Greece 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 Regional Banks industry using digital technology.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

High dependence on National Bank of Greece ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of National Bank of Greece still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Regional Banks industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though National Bank of Greece has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at National Bank of Greece, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. National Bank of Greece 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, National Bank of Greece 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 National Bank of Greece supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, National Bank of Greece is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left National Bank of Greece vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, National Bank of Greece has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. National Bank of Greece 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.

Products dominated business model

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

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of National Bank of Greece is just above the Regional Banks 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.

---

National Bank of Greece Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of National Bank of Greece are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at National Bank of Greece 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 Regional Banks industry.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, National Bank of Greece can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that National Bank of Greece operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Regional Banks sector.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Regional Banks industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. National Bank of Greece 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. National Bank of Greece 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

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

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, National Bank of Greece 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 National Bank of Greece to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, National Bank of Greece is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. National Bank of Greece can utilize new technology in the field of Regional Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Buying journey improvements

– National Bank of Greece can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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.

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 National Bank of Greece 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects National Bank of Greece can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Loyalty marketing

– National Bank of Greece 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for National Bank of Greece 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.

Manufacturing automation

– National Bank of Greece can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Regional Banks 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 National Bank of Greece External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of National Bank of Greece are -

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 National Bank of Greece.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, National Bank of Greece may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– National Bank of Greece has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, National Bank of Greece needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Regional Banks 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.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– National Bank of Greece 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 Regional Banks industry.

Environmental challenges

– National Bank of Greece 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. National Bank of Greece can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on National Bank of Greece 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 Regional Banks industry and other sectors.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, National Bank of Greece 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 National Bank of Greece prominent markets.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that National Bank of Greece is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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. National Bank of Greece needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for National Bank of Greece in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents National Bank of Greece with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of National Bank of Greece Template, Example

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

--- ---