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 – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, 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 -
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Blue Planet Investment 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Training and development
– Blue Planet Investment 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.
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.
High brand equity
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Blue Planet Investment 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Blue Planet Investment 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.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Blue Planet Investment 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.
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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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 Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Blue Planet Investment 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. Blue Planet Investment 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, Blue Planet Investment 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. Blue Planet Investment 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.
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 -
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.
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 Blue Planet Investment 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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Blue Planet Investment 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Blue Planet Investment 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.
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. Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Blue Planet Investment 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Blue Planet Investment Trust PLC 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
