Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed
2. Improving business portfolio management of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed
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 Strategic Muni Closed
Strengths of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Organizational Resilience of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Weaknesses of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed are -
Need for greater diversity
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 dependence on BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Strategic Muni Closed 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.
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. BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
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 Strategic Muni Closed in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed to increase its market reach. BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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, BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Strategic Muni Closed can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed to build a more holistic ecosystem for BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Threats BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed are -
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 Strategic Muni Closed will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
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 Strategic Muni Closed.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Regulatory challenges
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Strategic Muni Closed needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Strategic Muni Closed in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BlackRock Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed 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 Strategic Muni Closed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.