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Funding Circle SME Income Fund (FCIF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Funding Circle SME Income Fund (United Kingdom)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Funding Circle SME Income Fund is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Funding Circle SME Income Fund


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Funding Circle SME Income Fund can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Funding Circle SME Income Fund, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Funding Circle SME Income Fund
2. Improving business portfolio management of Funding Circle SME Income Fund
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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund




Strengths of Funding Circle SME Income Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Funding Circle SME Income Fund are -

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Funding Circle SME Income Fund to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Funding Circle SME Income Fund to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Innovation driven organization

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Funding Circle SME Income Fund staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Training and development

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Funding Circle SME Income Fund in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Learning organization

- Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Funding Circle SME Income Fund emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Funding Circle SME Income Fund in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Funding Circle SME Income Fund has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Funding Circle SME Income Fund to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Funding Circle SME Income Fund in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.






Weaknesses of Funding Circle SME Income Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Funding Circle SME Income Fund are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.

Lack of clear differentiation of Funding Circle SME Income Fund products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Funding Circle SME Income Fund needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Funding Circle SME Income Fund needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High dependence on Funding Circle SME Income Fund ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Funding Circle SME Income Fund still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Funding Circle SME Income Fund has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Funding Circle SME Income Fund is planning to shift buying processes online.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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. Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.




Funding Circle SME Income Fund Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Funding Circle SME Income Fund are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Loyalty marketing

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Funding Circle SME Income Fund can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Funding Circle SME Income Fund operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Funding Circle SME Income Fund in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Funding Circle SME Income Fund can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Developing new processes and practices

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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. Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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. Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Funding Circle SME Income Fund is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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. Funding Circle SME Income Fund can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

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. Funding Circle SME Income Fund can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Funding Circle SME Income Fund to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Funding Circle SME Income Fund to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Funding Circle SME Income Fund are -

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund prominent markets.

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.

Increasing wage structure of Funding Circle SME Income Fund

– 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund.

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. Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Regulatory challenges

– Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

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. Funding Circle SME Income Fund can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Funding Circle SME Income Fund may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.

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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Funding Circle SME Income Fund demand

– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Funding Circle SME Income Fund is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Funding Circle SME Income Fund Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund 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 Funding Circle SME Income Fund needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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