Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC (BLP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC
Strengths of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blue Planet Investment 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Blue Planet Investment 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.
Weaknesses of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC are -
Need for greater diversity
– Blue Planet Investment 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Blue Planet Investment 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, Blue Planet Investment 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Blue Planet Investment 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Blue Planet Investment 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to increase its market reach. Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Blue Planet Investment 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Blue Planet Investment 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Blue Planet Investment 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.
Threats Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC are -
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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Blue Planet Investment 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Blue Planet Investment 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Blue Planet Investment 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
Increasing wage structure of Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC.
Regulatory challenges
– Blue Planet Investment 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.
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. Blue Planet Investment 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.
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. Blue Planet Investment 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.
Environmental challenges
– Blue Planet Investment 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. Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Blue Planet Investment 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.