SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Metlife Inc BDR (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Metlife Inc BDR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Metlife Inc BDR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Metlife Inc BDR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Metlife Inc BDR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR
Strengths of Metlife Inc BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Metlife Inc BDR are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Metlife Inc 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Metlife Inc BDR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Metlife Inc BDR digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Metlife Inc 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Metlife Inc BDR in the sector have low bargaining power. Metlife Inc BDR has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Metlife Inc BDR to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Metlife Inc 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.
Training and development
– Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Metlife Inc BDR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Metlife Inc 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.
Learning organization
- Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Metlife Inc BDR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Metlife Inc BDR 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.
High brand equity
– Metlife Inc BDR has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Metlife Inc BDR to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Metlife Inc BDR is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Metlife Inc 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.
Weaknesses of Metlife Inc BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Metlife Inc BDR are -
High dependence on Metlife Inc BDR ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Metlife Inc BDR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Metlife Inc BDR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Metlife Inc 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Metlife Inc 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Metlife Inc BDR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Metlife Inc BDR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Metlife Inc 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Brazil, Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brazil, Metlife Inc BDR needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Metlife Inc BDR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Metlife Inc 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Metlife Inc BDR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Metlife Inc BDR are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Metlife Inc BDR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Metlife Inc BDR to build a more holistic ecosystem for Metlife Inc BDR products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Metlife Inc BDR to increase its market reach. Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Metlife Inc 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Metlife Inc BDR can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Metlife Inc BDR operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Metlife Inc 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Metlife Inc 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Metlife Inc BDR 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 Metlife Inc BDR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Metlife Inc BDR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Metlife Inc BDR can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Metlife Inc BDR is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Metlife Inc BDR 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Metlife Inc BDR 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.
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. Metlife Inc 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. Metlife Inc 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.
Threats Metlife Inc BDR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Metlife Inc BDR are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Metlife Inc BDR is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Metlife Inc 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.
Environmental challenges
– Metlife Inc 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. Metlife Inc BDR can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Metlife Inc BDR has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Metlife Inc BDR 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.
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.
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. Metlife Inc 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.
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. Metlife Inc BDR can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Metlife Inc BDR in industry. The 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. Metlife Inc BDR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Metlife Inc BDR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc 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 Metlife Inc BDR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.