Intl Personal Finance (IPF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Consumer Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Intl Personal Finance (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Intl Personal Finance is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Intl Personal Finance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Intl Personal Finance can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Intl Personal Finance, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Intl Personal Finance
2. Improving business portfolio management of Intl Personal Finance
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Consumer Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Intl Personal Finance
Strengths of Intl Personal Finance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Intl Personal Finance are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Intl Personal Finance in Consumer Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Intl Personal Finance has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Intl Personal Finance 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)
– Intl Personal Finance has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Intl Personal Finance staying ahead in the Consumer Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Consumer Financial Services industry
– Intl Personal Finance is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Intl Personal Finance in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Intl Personal Finance has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Intl Personal Finance to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Intl Personal Finance 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.
Digital Transformation in Consumer Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Intl Personal Finance digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Intl Personal Finance 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.
Training and development
– Intl Personal Finance 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.
Analytics focus
– Intl Personal Finance 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 Consumer Financial Services 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Consumer Financial Services industry
– Intl Personal Finance has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Intl Personal Finance to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Intl Personal Finance to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Intl Personal Finance is present in almost all the verticals within the Consumer Financial Services industry. This has provided Intl Personal Finance 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Intl Personal Finance 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.
Weaknesses of Intl Personal Finance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Intl Personal Finance are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Consumer Financial Services industry, Intl Personal Finance 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Intl Personal Finance, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Consumer Financial Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Consumer Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Intl Personal Finance 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
Skills based hiring in Consumer Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Intl Personal Finance 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Intl Personal Finance is one of the leading players in the Consumer 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 Consumer Financial Services industry in last five years.
High dependence on Intl Personal Finance ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Intl Personal Finance still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Consumer Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Intl Personal Finance has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Intl Personal Finance, in the dynamic environment of Consumer Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Intl Personal Finance 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, Intl Personal Finance 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Intl Personal Finance has some of the most successful models in the Consumer Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Intl Personal Finance should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Intl Personal Finance products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Intl Personal Finance needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Intl Personal Finance has high operating costs in the Consumer Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Intl Personal Finance lucrative customers.
Intl Personal Finance Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Intl Personal Finance are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Consumer Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Intl Personal Finance 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. Intl Personal Finance 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.
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. Intl Personal Finance can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance 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, Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Intl Personal Finance in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Consumer Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Consumer Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Intl Personal Finance can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Intl Personal Finance can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Intl Personal Finance operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Consumer Financial Services sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Intl Personal Finance has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Consumer Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Intl Personal Finance to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Intl Personal Finance to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Intl Personal Finance 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Intl Personal Finance has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Consumer Financial Services industry. This can help Intl Personal Finance to build a more holistic ecosystem for Intl Personal Finance products in the Consumer Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Intl Personal Finance can develop new processes and procedures in Consumer 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.
Threats Intl Personal Finance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Intl Personal Finance are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Intl Personal Finance in Consumer Financial Services industry. The Consumer 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Intl Personal Finance is facing in Consumer Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Intl Personal Finance may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Consumer Financial Services sector.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Regulatory challenges
– Intl Personal Finance 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 Consumer Financial Services industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Intl Personal Finance
– 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 Intl Personal Finance.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Intl Personal Finance has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Consumer Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Intl Personal Finance needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Consumer 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.
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. Intl Personal Finance needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Consumer Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Intl Personal Finance 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 Consumer 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 Intl Personal Finance in the Consumer Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline 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. Intl Personal Finance 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.
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 Intl Personal Finance.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Intl Personal Finance Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance 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 Intl Personal Finance needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.