Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Auctus Growth PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Auctus Growth PLC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Auctus Growth PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Auctus Growth PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Auctus Growth PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC
Strengths of Auctus Growth PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Auctus Growth PLC are -
Analytics focus
– Auctus Growth PLC is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Auctus Growth 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Auctus Growth PLC in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Auctus Growth PLC has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Auctus Growth PLC to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Auctus Growth PLC in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Auctus Growth 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.
Training and development
– Auctus Growth 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Auctus Growth PLC is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
High brand equity
– Auctus Growth PLC has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Auctus Growth 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Auctus Growth PLC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Auctus Growth 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Auctus Growth PLC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Auctus Growth PLC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Auctus Growth PLC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Auctus Growth PLC
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Auctus Growth PLC does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Auctus Growth PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Auctus Growth PLC are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Auctus Growth 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Auctus Growth PLC, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Auctus Growth PLC has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Auctus Growth 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Auctus Growth PLC is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Auctus Growth PLC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Auctus Growth PLC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Auctus Growth PLC is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Auctus Growth PLC to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Auctus Growth PLC is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Auctus Growth PLC needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Auctus Growth PLC to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Auctus Growth PLC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Auctus Growth PLC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Auctus Growth PLC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Auctus Growth 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.
High dependence on Auctus Growth PLC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Auctus Growth PLC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Auctus Growth PLC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Auctus Growth 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.
Auctus Growth PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Auctus Growth PLC are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Auctus Growth 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Auctus Growth 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Auctus Growth 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Auctus Growth 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Auctus Growth PLC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Auctus Growth 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. Auctus Growth 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.
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 Auctus Growth PLC in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Auctus Growth PLC can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Auctus Growth 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
– Auctus Growth 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. Auctus Growth PLC can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Auctus Growth 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Auctus Growth PLC to increase its market reach. Auctus Growth 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Auctus Growth PLC has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Auctus Growth PLC to build a more holistic ecosystem for Auctus Growth PLC products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Auctus Growth PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Auctus Growth PLC are -
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. Auctus Growth 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.
Increasing wage structure of Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Auctus Growth 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Auctus Growth 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.
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. Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Auctus Growth 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.
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. Auctus Growth PLC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Auctus Growth PLC.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Auctus Growth 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Auctus Growth 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, Auctus Growth 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.
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 Auctus Growth PLC in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Auctus Growth PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth 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 Auctus Growth PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.