Popular Capital Trust II Pref (BPOPM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Popular Capital Trust II Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Popular Capital Trust II Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Popular Capital Trust II Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Popular Capital Trust II Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Popular Capital Trust II Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Popular Capital Trust II Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Popular Capital Trust II Pref
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Popular Capital Trust II Pref
Strengths of Popular Capital Trust II Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Popular Capital Trust II Pref are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Popular Capital Trust II Pref in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref has one of the best training and development program in 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Organizational Resilience of Popular Capital Trust II Pref
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Popular Capital Trust II Pref does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Popular Capital Trust II Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Popular Capital Trust II Pref comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Popular Capital Trust II Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Popular Capital Trust II Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Popular Capital Trust II Pref in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Popular Capital Trust II Pref staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Popular Capital Trust II Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Popular Capital Trust II Pref are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Popular Capital Trust II Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Popular Capital Trust II Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Popular Capital Trust II Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Popular Capital Trust II Pref to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Popular Capital Trust II Pref has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Popular Capital Trust II Pref still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Popular Capital Trust II Pref has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Popular Capital Trust II Pref supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Popular Capital Trust II Pref is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Popular Capital Trust II Pref vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Popular Capital Trust II Pref has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Popular Capital Trust II Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 industry using digital technology.
Popular Capital Trust II Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Popular Capital Trust II Pref are -
Buying journey improvements
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Popular Capital Trust II Pref can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Popular Capital Trust II Pref to increase its market reach. Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Popular Capital Trust II Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Popular Capital Trust II Pref can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Popular Capital Trust II Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Popular Capital Trust II Pref are -
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.
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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref.
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. Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Popular Capital Trust II Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Popular Capital Trust II Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Popular Capital Trust II Pref may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Environmental challenges
– Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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. Popular Capital Trust II Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Popular Capital Trust II Pref in industry. The 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Popular Capital Trust II Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Popular Capital Trust II Pref is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Popular Capital Trust II Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref 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 Popular Capital Trust II Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.