Standard Life UK Smaller (SLS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Standard Life UK Smaller (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Standard Life UK Smaller is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Standard Life UK Smaller
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Standard Life UK Smaller can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Standard Life UK Smaller, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Standard Life UK Smaller
2. Improving business portfolio management of Standard Life UK Smaller
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 Standard Life UK Smaller
Strengths of Standard Life UK Smaller | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Standard Life UK Smaller are -
High brand equity
– Standard Life UK Smaller has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Standard Life UK Smaller to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Standard Life UK Smaller digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Standard Life UK Smaller has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Standard Life UK Smaller have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Misc. 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 Misc. Financial Services industry
– Standard Life UK Smaller has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Standard Life UK Smaller to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Standard Life UK Smaller to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Learning organization
- Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Standard Life UK Smaller emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Standard Life UK Smaller in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Standard Life UK Smaller in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Standard Life UK Smaller has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Standard Life UK Smaller to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Standard Life UK Smaller | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Standard Life UK Smaller are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Standard Life UK Smaller has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Standard Life UK Smaller is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Standard Life UK Smaller needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Standard Life UK Smaller to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Standard Life UK Smaller, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Standard Life UK Smaller has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Standard Life UK Smaller is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Standard Life UK Smaller products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Standard Life UK Smaller needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Standard Life UK Smaller has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Standard Life UK Smaller Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Standard Life UK Smaller are -
Buying journey improvements
– Standard Life UK Smaller can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
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. Standard Life UK Smaller 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. Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Standard Life UK Smaller to increase its market reach. Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
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. Standard Life UK Smaller can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Standard Life UK Smaller is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Standard Life UK Smaller can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Standard Life UK Smaller can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Standard Life UK Smaller has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Standard Life UK Smaller to build a more holistic ecosystem for Standard Life UK Smaller products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Standard Life UK Smaller External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Standard Life UK Smaller are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Standard Life UK Smaller with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
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 Standard Life UK Smaller business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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. Standard Life UK Smaller can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Standard Life UK Smaller is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
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 Standard Life UK Smaller in the Misc. 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. Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Standard Life UK Smaller 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, Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
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 Standard Life UK Smaller.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Standard Life UK Smaller has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Standard Life UK Smaller 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Standard Life UK Smaller Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller 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 Standard Life UK Smaller needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
