BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust (BPK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust
2. Improving business portfolio management of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust
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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust
Strengths of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Organizational Resilience of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Analytics focus
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Innovation driven organization
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust to build a more holistic ecosystem for BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust.
Environmental challenges
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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. BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
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 Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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, BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BlackRock Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust 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 Municipal 2018 Term Trust needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.