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Franklin Resources (BEN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Franklin Resources (United States)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Franklin Resources is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Franklin Resources


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Franklin Resources can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Franklin Resources, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Franklin Resources
2. Improving business portfolio management of Franklin Resources
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 Franklin Resources




Strengths of Franklin Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Franklin Resources are -

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Franklin Resources in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Franklin Resources has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Franklin Resources 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry

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

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Franklin Resources has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Franklin Resources 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

– Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Franklin Resources comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment 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.

Learning organization

- Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Franklin Resources emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry

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

Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Franklin Resources 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.

Training and development

– Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Franklin Resources are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Franklin Resources is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Franklin Resources needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Franklin Resources to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Franklin Resources has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Investment Services industry over the last five years. Franklin Resources 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.

High dependence on Franklin Resources ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Franklin Resources still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Investment Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Franklin Resources has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Workers concerns about automation

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

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Franklin Resources 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Franklin Resources 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

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

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Franklin Resources, 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.

High operating costs

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Franklin Resources, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Franklin Resources has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Franklin Resources is just above the Investment 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.




Franklin Resources Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Franklin Resources are -

Loyalty marketing

– Franklin Resources 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

– Franklin Resources can develop new processes and procedures in Investment 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

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

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 Franklin Resources 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Franklin Resources 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.

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. Franklin Resources can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Franklin Resources to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Manufacturing automation

– Franklin Resources 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Franklin Resources 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 Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Franklin Resources 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. Franklin Resources 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.

Better consumer reach

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

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Franklin Resources 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.




Threats Franklin Resources External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Franklin Resources are -

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 Franklin Resources.

Instability in the European markets

– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Franklin Resources will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Franklin Resources in Investment Services industry. The Investment Services 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.

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.

Environmental challenges

– Franklin Resources 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. Franklin Resources can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Franklin Resources 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.

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. Franklin Resources 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

– Franklin Resources 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 Investment Services industry regulations.

Learning curve for new practices

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

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Franklin Resources 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 Franklin Resources prominent markets.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Franklin Resources 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.

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 Franklin Resources business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Franklin Resources has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Franklin Resources 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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Franklin Resources Template, Example


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



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