Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices,
wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC
Strengths of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC staying ahead in the Investment Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Learning organization
- Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Investment 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Investment Services
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Weaknesses of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Investment Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Investment Services industry.
Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has some of the most successful models in the Investment Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Investment Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Investment Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC to increase its market reach. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Loyalty marketing
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Investment Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Investment Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can develop new processes and procedures in Investment 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Investment Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Investment Services industry are lowering. It can presents Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Investment Services sector.
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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC in the Investment 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC.
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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Investment Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Investment 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Investment Services industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC
– 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC.
Environmental challenges
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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.
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 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. Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC 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 Honeycomb Investment Trust PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.