Baskerville Capital (BASK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Baskerville Capital (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Baskerville Capital is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Baskerville Capital
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Baskerville Capital can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Baskerville Capital, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Baskerville Capital
2. Improving business portfolio management of Baskerville Capital
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Baskerville Capital
Strengths of Baskerville Capital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Baskerville Capital are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Baskerville Capital 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 industry
– Baskerville Capital has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Baskerville Capital to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Baskerville Capital to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Baskerville Capital digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Baskerville Capital 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.
Training and development
– Baskerville Capital has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Baskerville Capital comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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
– Baskerville Capital has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Baskerville Capital have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Baskerville Capital is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Analytics focus
– Baskerville Capital 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 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Baskerville Capital in the sector have low bargaining power. Baskerville Capital has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Baskerville Capital to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Baskerville Capital in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in
– Baskerville Capital is one of the leading players in the industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Baskerville Capital in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Baskerville Capital are -
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Baskerville Capital 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 industry.
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 Baskerville Capital supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Baskerville Capital is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Baskerville Capital vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Baskerville Capital 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 industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Baskerville Capital has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Baskerville Capital should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Baskerville Capital, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Baskerville Capital is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Baskerville Capital needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Baskerville Capital to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Baskerville Capital ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Baskerville Capital still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Baskerville Capital has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Baskerville Capital needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Baskerville Capital 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.
Baskerville Capital Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Baskerville Capital are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Baskerville Capital 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 industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Baskerville Capital can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Baskerville Capital in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Baskerville Capital has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Baskerville Capital to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Baskerville Capital to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Baskerville Capital 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Baskerville Capital is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Baskerville Capital can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Baskerville Capital in the industry. Now Baskerville Capital can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Baskerville Capital can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Baskerville Capital can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Baskerville Capital operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Baskerville Capital to increase its market reach. Baskerville Capital 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Baskerville Capital 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. Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Baskerville Capital to build a more holistic ecosystem for Baskerville Capital products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Baskerville Capital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Baskerville Capital are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Baskerville Capital has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Baskerville Capital needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Baskerville Capital 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 industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Baskerville Capital 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 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 Baskerville Capital in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Baskerville Capital
– 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 Baskerville Capital.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital prominent markets.
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 Baskerville Capital.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Baskerville Capital may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Baskerville Capital is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Baskerville Capital can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Baskerville Capital business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Baskerville Capital 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. Baskerville Capital can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Baskerville Capital Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital 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 Baskerville Capital needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
