Personal Group Holdings (PGH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Insurance (Accident & Health)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Personal Group Holdings (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Personal Group Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Personal Group Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Personal Group Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Personal Group Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Personal Group Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Personal Group Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Insurance (Accident & Health) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Personal Group Holdings
Strengths of Personal Group Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Personal Group Holdings are -
Digital Transformation in Insurance (Accident & Health) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Personal Group Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Personal Group Holdings 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.
Analytics focus
– Personal Group Holdings 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 Insurance (Accident & Health) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Personal Group Holdings in Insurance (Accident & Health) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Personal Group Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Personal Group Holdings 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.
Ability to lead change in Insurance (Accident & Health)
– Personal Group Holdings is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Personal Group Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Personal Group Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Personal Group Holdings staying ahead in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry
– Personal Group Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Personal Group Holdings in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Personal Group Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Personal Group Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Personal Group Holdings 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Personal Group Holdings 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Personal Group Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Insurance (Accident & Health) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Personal Group Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry. This has provided Personal Group Holdings 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.
Weaknesses of Personal Group Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Personal Group Holdings are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Personal Group Holdings is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry in last five years.
High dependence on Personal Group Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Personal Group Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Insurance (Accident & Health) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Personal Group Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Insurance (Accident & Health) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Personal Group Holdings 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 Insurance (Accident & Health) industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Personal Group Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Personal Group Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Personal Group Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Personal Group Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Personal Group Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Personal Group Holdings has high operating costs in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Personal Group Holdings lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Personal Group Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Personal Group Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Personal Group Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Personal Group Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Personal Group Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Insurance (Accident & Health) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Personal Group Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Personal Group Holdings supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Personal Group Holdings is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Personal Group Holdings vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Personal Group Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Personal Group Holdings are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Personal Group Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Personal Group Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Insurance (Accident & Health) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Personal Group Holdings 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. Personal Group Holdings 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Personal Group Holdings 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Personal Group Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Personal Group Holdings 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Personal Group Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Insurance (Accident & Health) 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings 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
– Personal Group Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Insurance (Accident & Health) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Personal Group Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Personal Group Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Personal Group Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Insurance (Accident & Health) 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Personal Group Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Personal Group Holdings 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Personal Group Holdings 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 Insurance (Accident & Health) industry.
Threats Personal Group Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Personal Group Holdings are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Personal Group Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Personal Group Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Insurance (Accident & Health) 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Insurance (Accident & Health) industry are lowering. It can presents Personal Group Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Insurance (Accident & Health) sector.
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. Personal Group Holdings 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, Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Personal Group Holdings 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 Insurance (Accident & Health) industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Personal Group Holdings 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. Personal Group Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Insurance (Accident & Health) industry.
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 Personal Group Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Personal Group Holdings 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 Insurance (Accident & Health) industry and other sectors.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Personal Group Holdings in Insurance (Accident & Health) industry. The Insurance (Accident & Health) 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Personal Group Holdings is facing in Insurance (Accident & Health) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Personal Group Holdings in the Insurance (Accident & Health) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Personal Group Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings 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 Personal Group Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.