Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Montanaro Smaller Companies is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Montanaro Smaller Companies
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Montanaro Smaller Companies can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Montanaro Smaller Companies, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Montanaro Smaller Companies
2. Improving business portfolio management of Montanaro Smaller Companies
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 Montanaro Smaller Companies
Strengths of Montanaro Smaller Companies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Montanaro Smaller Companies are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Montanaro Smaller Companies is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Montanaro Smaller Companies has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Montanaro Smaller Companies has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Montanaro Smaller Companies to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Montanaro Smaller Companies
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Montanaro Smaller Companies does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Montanaro Smaller Companies digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Montanaro Smaller Companies has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Montanaro Smaller Companies to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Montanaro Smaller Companies to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Montanaro Smaller Companies has one of the best training and development program in Financial industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Analytics focus
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
High brand equity
– Montanaro Smaller Companies has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Montanaro Smaller Companies to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Montanaro Smaller Companies is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Montanaro Smaller Companies is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Weaknesses of Montanaro Smaller Companies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Montanaro Smaller Companies are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Montanaro Smaller Companies, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Montanaro Smaller Companies has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Montanaro Smaller Companies has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Montanaro Smaller Companies should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Montanaro Smaller Companies strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Montanaro Smaller Companies don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Montanaro Smaller Companies is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Montanaro Smaller Companies needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Montanaro Smaller Companies to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Montanaro Smaller Companies is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Montanaro Smaller Companies to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Montanaro Smaller Companies Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Montanaro Smaller Companies are -
Buying journey improvements
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Montanaro Smaller Companies to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Montanaro Smaller Companies can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Montanaro Smaller Companies is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
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 Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Montanaro Smaller Companies 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
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Threats Montanaro Smaller Companies External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Montanaro Smaller Companies are -
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. Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
Environmental challenges
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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. Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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.
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 Montanaro Smaller Companies in the Misc. Financial 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
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. Montanaro Smaller Companies needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Montanaro Smaller Companies Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies 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 Montanaro Smaller Companies needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.