BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust (BQH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond Trust can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust
2. Improving business portfolio management of BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond Trust
Strengths of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust are -
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond Trust in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
Training and development
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
High brand equity
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond Trust have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Weaknesses of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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 BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond Trust should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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 New York Muni Bond Trust lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond Trust to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
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 New York Muni Bond 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Loyalty marketing
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust to build a more holistic ecosystem for BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust to increase its market reach. BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
Threats BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
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 New York Muni Bond Trust business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 New York Muni Bond 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust 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 New York Muni Bond Trust prominent markets.
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.
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.
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 New York Muni Bond Trust in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline 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 New York Muni Bond 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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.
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. BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BlackRock New York Muni Bond Trust Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BlackRock New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond 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 New York Muni Bond Trust needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.