SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Amfil Technologies (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Amfil Technologies is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Amfil Technologies
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Amfil Technologies can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Amfil Technologies, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Amfil Technologies 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 Amfil Technologies can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Amfil Technologies
2. Improving business portfolio management of Amfil Technologies
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Amfil Technologies
Strengths of Amfil Technologies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Amfil Technologies are -
Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Amfil Technologies digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Amfil Technologies 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Amfil Technologies has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Amfil Technologies staying ahead in the Investment Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Investment Services
– Amfil Technologies is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Amfil Technologies in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Amfil Technologies has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Amfil Technologies have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Amfil Technologies has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Amfil Technologies 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
– Amfil Technologies is present in almost all the verticals within the Investment Services industry. This has provided Amfil Technologies 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Amfil Technologies in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Amfil Technologies is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Amfil Technologies in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Amfil Technologies has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Amfil Technologies to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Amfil Technologies 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 Amfil Technologies is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Amfil Technologies emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Amfil Technologies has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Amfil Technologies to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Amfil Technologies 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.
Weaknesses of Amfil Technologies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Amfil Technologies are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Amfil Technologies is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Amfil Technologies to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Amfil Technologies, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Investment Services 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Amfil Technologies, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Amfil Technologies has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Amfil Technologies strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Amfil Technologies 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Investment Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Amfil Technologies 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 Investment Services industry.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Amfil Technologies 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Amfil Technologies is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Amfil Technologies needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Amfil Technologies to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Amfil Technologies 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.
Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Amfil Technologies 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Amfil Technologies needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Amfil Technologies can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Amfil Technologies is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Amfil Technologies has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Investment Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Amfil Technologies Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Amfil Technologies are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Amfil Technologies 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 Investment Services industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Amfil Technologies 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Amfil Technologies in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Investment Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Amfil Technologies 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Amfil Technologies 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 Amfil Technologies 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, Amfil Technologies 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 Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Amfil Technologies 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. Amfil Technologies 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Amfil Technologies 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Investment Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Amfil Technologies in the Investment Services industry. Now Amfil Technologies can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Amfil Technologies can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Investment Services 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
– Amfil Technologies has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Amfil Technologies to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Amfil Technologies to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Amfil Technologies can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Amfil Technologies operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
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 Amfil Technologies 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.
Threats Amfil Technologies External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Amfil Technologies are -
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Investment Services industry are lowering. It can presents Amfil Technologies with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Investment Services sector.
Increasing wage structure of Amfil Technologies
– 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 Amfil Technologies.
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 Amfil Technologies.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Amfil Technologies 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 Investment Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Amfil Technologies 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Amfil Technologies 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 Investment Services industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Amfil Technologies has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Amfil Technologies needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Investment Services 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Investment Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Amfil Technologies can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Amfil Technologies 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. Amfil Technologies can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.
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 Amfil Technologies business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Amfil Technologies is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Amfil Technologies Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Amfil Technologies 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 Amfil Technologies 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 Amfil Technologies 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 Amfil Technologies 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 Amfil Technologies needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
