Blackrock Income and Growth Investm (BRIGB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Blackrock Income and Growth Investm (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Blackrock Income and Growth Investm can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blackrock Income and Growth Investm, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm
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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm
Strengths of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm are -
Learning organization
- Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Blackrock Income and Growth Investm emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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)
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Blackrock Income and Growth Investm staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Lack of clear differentiation of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Blackrock Income and Growth Investm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Blackrock Income and Growth Investm can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Blackrock Income and Growth Investm lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Blackrock Income and Growth Investm needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Blackrock Income and Growth Investm Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
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. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Blackrock Income and Growth Investm to build a more holistic ecosystem for Blackrock Income and Growth Investm products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Blackrock Income and Growth Investm can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Blackrock Income and Growth Investm External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm are -
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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline 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. Blackrock Income and Growth Investm needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm
– 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm.
Regulatory challenges
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Blackrock Income and Growth Investm is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Blackrock Income and Growth Investm has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Blackrock Income and Growth Investm needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blackrock Income and Growth Investm demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blackrock Income and Growth Investm Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm 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 Blackrock Income and Growth Investm needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
