Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC (GVP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC
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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC
Strengths of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 brand equity
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 recruit top talent
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Weaknesses of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC are -
Buying journey improvements
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Threats Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC are -
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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC
– 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
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. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC 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 Gabelli Value Plus Trust PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.