SANTANDER BRON (SANB3) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for SANTANDER BRON (Brazil)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , SANTANDER BRON is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SANTANDER BRON

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that SANTANDER BRON can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the SANTANDER BRON, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which SANTANDER BRON 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of SANTANDER BRON can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of SANTANDER BRON
2. Improving business portfolio management of SANTANDER BRON
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of SANTANDER BRON

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Strengths of SANTANDER BRON | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of SANTANDER BRON are -

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– SANTANDER BRON has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – SANTANDER BRON staying ahead in the Regional Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the SANTANDER BRON 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of SANTANDER BRON in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. SANTANDER BRON has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps SANTANDER BRON to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Analytics focus

– SANTANDER BRON 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 Regional Banks 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– SANTANDER BRON has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Regional Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of SANTANDER BRON have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Training and development

– SANTANDER BRON 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.

Digital Transformation in Regional Banks industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For SANTANDER BRON digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. SANTANDER BRON 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.

Organizational Resilience of SANTANDER BRON

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing SANTANDER BRON does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry

– SANTANDER BRON is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Diverse revenue streams

– SANTANDER BRON is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided SANTANDER BRON 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Regional Banks industry

– SANTANDER BRON has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled SANTANDER BRON to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Regional Banks industry. The sustainable margins have also helped SANTANDER BRON to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of SANTANDER BRON comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.

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Weaknesses of SANTANDER BRON | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of SANTANDER BRON are -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at SANTANDER BRON, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. SANTANDER BRON 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 SANTANDER BRON needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Regional Banks industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at SANTANDER BRON can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as SANTANDER BRON is planning to shift buying processes online.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

SANTANDER BRON has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Regional Banks industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

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 SANTANDER BRON supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, SANTANDER BRON is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left SANTANDER BRON vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As SANTANDER BRON is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Regional Banks industry in last five years.

Employees’ less understanding of SANTANDER BRON strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of SANTANDER BRON 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, SANTANDER BRON has high operating costs in the Regional Banks industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract SANTANDER BRON lucrative customers.

Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at SANTANDER BRON 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Regional Banks industry, SANTANDER BRON needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Brazil, SANTANDER BRON 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 Regional Banks industry.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, SANTANDER BRON has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. SANTANDER BRON 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.

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SANTANDER BRON Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of SANTANDER BRON are -

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, SANTANDER BRON is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SANTANDER BRON can utilize new technology in the field of Regional Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for SANTANDER BRON in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Regional Banks industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help SANTANDER BRON to increase its market reach. SANTANDER BRON 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– SANTANDER BRON 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, SANTANDER BRON 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.

Buying journey improvements

– SANTANDER BRON can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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 SANTANDER BRON 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 SANTANDER BRON to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for SANTANDER BRON 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Regional Banks industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. SANTANDER BRON can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, SANTANDER BRON can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that SANTANDER BRON operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Regional Banks sector.

Loyalty marketing

– SANTANDER BRON 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.

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 SANTANDER BRON 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, SANTANDER BRON 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 SANTANDER BRON to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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Threats SANTANDER BRON External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of SANTANDER BRON are -

Increasing wage structure of SANTANDER BRON

– 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 SANTANDER BRON.

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.

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 SANTANDER BRON business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– SANTANDER BRON 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 Regional Banks industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on SANTANDER BRON 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 Regional Banks industry and other sectors.

Regulatory challenges

– SANTANDER BRON 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 Regional Banks industry regulations.

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 SANTANDER BRON in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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 SANTANDER BRON.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. SANTANDER BRON can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. SANTANDER BRON needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for SANTANDER BRON in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.

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. SANTANDER BRON 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, SANTANDER BRON may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of SANTANDER BRON Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at SANTANDER BRON 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 SANTANDER BRON 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 SANTANDER BRON 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 SANTANDER BRON 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 SANTANDER BRON needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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