Asia Pacific Closed Fund (APB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Asia Pacific Closed Fund (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Asia Pacific Closed Fund is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Asia Pacific Closed Fund
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Asia Pacific Closed Fund can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Asia Pacific Closed Fund, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Asia Pacific Closed Fund
2. Improving business portfolio management of Asia Pacific Closed Fund
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Asia Pacific Closed Fund
Strengths of Asia Pacific Closed Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Asia Pacific Closed Fund are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Asia Pacific Closed Fund in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Asia Pacific Closed Fund has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Asia Pacific Closed Fund to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Asia Pacific Closed Fund comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Asia Pacific Closed Fund have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Asia Pacific Closed Fund staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Asia Pacific Closed Fund emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Asia Pacific Closed Fund to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Asia Pacific Closed Fund to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Asia Pacific Closed Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Asia Pacific Closed Fund are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
High dependence on Asia Pacific Closed Fund ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Asia Pacific Closed Fund still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Asia Pacific Closed Fund has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Asia Pacific Closed Fund has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Asia Pacific Closed Fund should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Asia Pacific Closed Fund needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Asia Pacific Closed Fund can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Asia Pacific Closed Fund is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Asia Pacific Closed Fund is just above the Misc. Financial Services 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Asia Pacific Closed Fund, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Asia Pacific Closed Fund needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Asia Pacific Closed Fund has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Asia Pacific Closed Fund Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Asia Pacific Closed Fund are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Asia Pacific Closed Fund to increase its market reach. Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Asia Pacific Closed Fund to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Asia Pacific Closed Fund to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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. Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Asia Pacific Closed Fund can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Asia Pacific Closed Fund has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Asia Pacific Closed Fund to build a more holistic ecosystem for Asia Pacific Closed Fund products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Asia Pacific Closed Fund is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Asia Pacific Closed Fund can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Asia Pacific Closed Fund External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Asia Pacific Closed Fund are -
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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Asia Pacific Closed Fund needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial 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.
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. Asia Pacific Closed Fund needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Asia Pacific Closed Fund can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Asia Pacific Closed Fund with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Asia Pacific Closed Fund may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund prominent markets.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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. Asia Pacific Closed Fund can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Asia Pacific Closed Fund Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund 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 Asia Pacific Closed Fund needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
