SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sanlam Ltd (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sanlam Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sanlam Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sanlam Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sanlam Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sanlam Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Insurance (Life) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sanlam Ltd
Strengths of Sanlam Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sanlam Ltd are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sanlam Ltd in Insurance (Life) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Sanlam Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sanlam Ltd 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 Insurance (Life) industry
– Sanlam Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sanlam Ltd is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Life) industry in South Africa. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in South Africa. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Sanlam Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Insurance (Life) 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
– Sanlam Ltd 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sanlam Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sanlam Ltd staying ahead in the Insurance (Life) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sanlam Ltd 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.
Learning organization
- Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sanlam Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sanlam Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Insurance (Life) industry. This has provided Sanlam Ltd 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sanlam Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sanlam Ltd 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.
Ability to lead change in Insurance (Life)
– Sanlam Ltd is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Life) industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Insurance (Life) industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sanlam Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Sanlam Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sanlam Ltd are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Africa, Sanlam Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Sanlam Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sanlam Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Insurance (Life) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sanlam Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sanlam Ltd 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sanlam Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Insurance (Life) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sanlam Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Insurance (Life) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Insurance (Life) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sanlam Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sanlam Ltd 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 Insurance (Life) industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sanlam Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Insurance (Life) industry, but Sanlam Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sanlam Ltd to focus more on services in the Insurance (Life) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Insurance (Life) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Africa, Sanlam Ltd 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 Insurance (Life) industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sanlam Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Insurance (Life) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Sanlam Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sanlam Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sanlam Ltd is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Life) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Insurance (Life) industry in last five years.
Sanlam Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sanlam Ltd are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sanlam Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Insurance (Life) industry. This can help Sanlam Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sanlam Ltd products in the Insurance (Life) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sanlam Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sanlam Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sanlam Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Insurance (Life) 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 Sanlam Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Insurance (Life) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Sanlam Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sanlam Ltd 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 Insurance (Life) industry.
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. Sanlam Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Sanlam Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Insurance (Life) 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sanlam Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Insurance (Life) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sanlam Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sanlam Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sanlam Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Insurance (Life) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sanlam Ltd 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. Sanlam Ltd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sanlam Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Insurance (Life) 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.
Threats Sanlam Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sanlam Ltd are -
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sanlam Ltd 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 Insurance (Life) industry.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Sanlam Ltd
– 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 Sanlam Ltd.
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. Sanlam Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Insurance (Life) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Insurance (Life) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sanlam Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sanlam Ltd 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sanlam Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Insurance (Life) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sanlam Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Insurance (Life) 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
– Sanlam Ltd 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 Insurance (Life) 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 Sanlam Ltd in the Insurance (Life) 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 Sanlam Ltd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sanlam Ltd is facing in Insurance (Life) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Sanlam Ltd 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. Sanlam Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Insurance (Life) industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sanlam Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd 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 Sanlam Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.