BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos (BJZ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos
2. Improving business portfolio management of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos
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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos
Strengths of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Analytics focus
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High brand equity
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Training and development
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
High dependence on BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to increase its market reach. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Threats BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos
– 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos.
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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos 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 BlackRock California Muni 2018 Clos needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.