SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for African Phoenix Invest (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , African Phoenix Invest is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of African Phoenix Invest
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that African Phoenix Invest can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the African Phoenix Invest, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of African Phoenix Invest
2. Improving business portfolio management of African Phoenix Invest
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 African Phoenix Invest
Strengths of African Phoenix Invest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of African Phoenix Invest are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– African Phoenix Invest has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Insurance (Life) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of African Phoenix Invest have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– African Phoenix Invest has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – African Phoenix Invest 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.
Learning organization
- African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at African Phoenix Invest emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of African Phoenix Invest 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of African Phoenix Invest in Insurance (Life) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– African Phoenix Invest has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. African Phoenix Invest 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– African Phoenix Invest is present in almost all the verticals within the Insurance (Life) industry. This has provided African Phoenix Invest 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.
Ability to lead change in Insurance (Life)
– African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of African Phoenix Invest in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. African Phoenix Invest has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps African Phoenix Invest to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Insurance (Life) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For African Phoenix Invest digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. African Phoenix Invest 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.
Innovation driven organization
– African Phoenix Invest is one of the most innovative firm in Insurance (Life) sector.
Training and development
– African Phoenix Invest 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.
Weaknesses of African Phoenix Invest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of African Phoenix Invest are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, African Phoenix Invest 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as African Phoenix Invest is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on African Phoenix Invest ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 African Phoenix Invest supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, African Phoenix Invest is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left African Phoenix Invest vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of African Phoenix Invest is just above the Insurance (Life) 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.
Employees’ less understanding of African Phoenix Invest strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of African Phoenix Invest 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As African Phoenix Invest 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.
Skills based hiring in Insurance (Life) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at African Phoenix Invest 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, African Phoenix Invest is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help African Phoenix Invest to provide better information regarding Insurance (Life) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Insurance (Life) industry, African Phoenix Invest 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of African Phoenix Invest products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, African Phoenix Invest needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
African Phoenix Invest Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of African Phoenix Invest are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Insurance (Life) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for African Phoenix Invest in the Insurance (Life) industry. Now African Phoenix Invest can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, African Phoenix Invest is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. African Phoenix Invest 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.
Manufacturing automation
– African Phoenix Invest 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– African Phoenix Invest can develop new processes and procedures in Insurance (Life) 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, African Phoenix Invest can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that African Phoenix Invest operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Insurance (Life) sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, African Phoenix Invest 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at African Phoenix Invest 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for African Phoenix Invest 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help African Phoenix Invest to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– African Phoenix Invest 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.
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. African Phoenix Invest 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. African Phoenix Invest 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– African Phoenix Invest 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.
Threats African Phoenix Invest External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of African Phoenix Invest are -
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 African Phoenix Invest business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of African Phoenix Invest
– 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 African Phoenix Invest.
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. African Phoenix Invest needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Insurance (Life) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that African Phoenix Invest is facing in Insurance (Life) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– African Phoenix Invest 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for African Phoenix Invest in Insurance (Life) industry. The Insurance (Life) 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.
Regulatory challenges
– African Phoenix Invest 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, African Phoenix Invest may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Insurance (Life) sector.
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. African Phoenix Invest can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 African Phoenix Invest in the Insurance (Life) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– African Phoenix Invest 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Insurance (Life) industry are lowering. It can presents African Phoenix Invest with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Insurance (Life) sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of African Phoenix Invest Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest 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 African Phoenix Invest needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
