Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Impax Asset Management is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Impax Asset Management
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Impax Asset Management can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Impax Asset Management, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Impax Asset Management
2. Improving business portfolio management of Impax Asset Management
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 Impax Asset Management
Strengths of Impax Asset Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Impax Asset Management are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Impax Asset Management 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.
Training and development
– Impax Asset Management 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.
Ability to lead change in Investment Services
– Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Impax Asset Management in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Impax Asset Management 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Impax Asset Management has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Impax Asset Management 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)
– Impax Asset Management has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Impax Asset Management 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Impax Asset Management emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Impax Asset Management is present in almost all the verticals within the Investment Services industry. This has provided Impax Asset Management 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry
– Impax Asset Management has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Impax Asset Management to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Investment Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Impax Asset Management to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Impax Asset Management are -
High dependence on Impax Asset Management ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Impax Asset Management is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Impax Asset Management is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Impax Asset Management to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Impax Asset Management 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. Impax Asset Management should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Impax Asset Management 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 Investment Services industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Impax Asset Management is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Impax Asset Management needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Impax Asset Management to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Impax Asset Management is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Investment Services industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Impax Asset Management 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.
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 Impax Asset Management supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Impax Asset Management is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Impax Asset Management vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Investment Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Impax Asset Management 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Impax Asset Management, 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.
Impax Asset Management Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Impax Asset Management are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management to increase its market reach. Impax Asset Management 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Impax Asset Management can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Impax Asset Management operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Impax Asset Management 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Impax Asset Management is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Impax Asset Management can utilize new technology in the field of Investment 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 Investment Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Impax Asset Management can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management 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.
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. Impax Asset Management 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. Impax Asset Management 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Impax Asset Management 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Impax Asset Management 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Impax Asset Management has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Investment Services industry. This can help Impax Asset Management to build a more holistic ecosystem for Impax Asset Management products in the Investment Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Impax Asset Management External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Impax Asset Management are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Impax Asset Management has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Impax Asset Management 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.
Environmental challenges
– Impax Asset Management 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. Impax Asset Management can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.
Increasing wage structure of Impax Asset Management
– 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 Impax Asset Management.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Impax Asset Management is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Impax Asset Management can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Impax Asset Management can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Investment Services industry.
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 Impax Asset Management in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Impax Asset Management 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 Investment Services industry regulations.
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. Impax Asset Management 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.
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. Impax Asset Management needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Impax Asset Management.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Impax Asset Management 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Impax Asset Management may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Investment Services sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Impax Asset Management Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management 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 Impax Asset Management needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.