Goldman Sachs Group BDR (GSGI34) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Goldman Sachs Group BDR (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Goldman Sachs Group BDR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Goldman Sachs Group BDR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Goldman Sachs Group BDR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Goldman Sachs Group BDR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Goldman Sachs Group BDR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Goldman Sachs Group BDR
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Goldman Sachs Group BDR
Strengths of Goldman Sachs Group BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Goldman Sachs Group BDR are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Goldman Sachs Group BDR digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
Learning organization
- Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Goldman Sachs Group BDR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR is one of the leading players in the industry in Brazil. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Brazil. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Organizational Resilience of Goldman Sachs Group BDR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Goldman Sachs Group BDR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Goldman Sachs Group BDR in the sector have low bargaining power. Goldman Sachs Group BDR has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Goldman Sachs Group BDR to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Brazil 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Goldman Sachs Group BDR in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Goldman Sachs Group BDR staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Goldman Sachs Group BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Goldman Sachs Group BDR are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Goldman Sachs Group BDR is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Goldman Sachs Group BDR to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Goldman Sachs Group BDR needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Goldman Sachs Group BDR can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Goldman Sachs Group BDR is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Goldman Sachs Group BDR ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Goldman Sachs Group BDR still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Goldman Sachs Group BDR has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Goldman Sachs Group BDR is just above the 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Goldman Sachs Group BDR, 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Goldman Sachs Group BDR has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Goldman Sachs Group BDR lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brazil, Goldman Sachs Group BDR needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Goldman Sachs Group BDR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
Goldman Sachs Group BDR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Goldman Sachs Group BDR are -
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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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. Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
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. Goldman Sachs Group BDR can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Goldman Sachs Group BDR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
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. Goldman Sachs Group BDR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Goldman Sachs Group BDR can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Goldman Sachs Group BDR operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Goldman Sachs Group BDR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Goldman Sachs Group BDR to build a more holistic ecosystem for Goldman Sachs Group BDR products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Goldman Sachs Group BDR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Goldman Sachs Group BDR are -
Regulatory challenges
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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.
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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Goldman Sachs Group BDR is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Goldman Sachs Group BDR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR prominent markets.
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. Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR
– 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR.
Environmental challenges
– Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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. Goldman Sachs Group BDR can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Goldman Sachs Group BDR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR 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 Goldman Sachs Group BDR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
