John Hancock Finan Opportunities (BTO) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for John Hancock Finan Opportunities (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , John Hancock Finan Opportunities is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of John Hancock Finan Opportunities
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that John Hancock Finan Opportunities can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the John Hancock Finan Opportunities, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of John Hancock Finan Opportunities
2. Improving business portfolio management of John Hancock Finan Opportunities
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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities
Strengths of John Hancock Finan Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of John Hancock Finan Opportunities are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Innovation driven organization
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of John Hancock Finan Opportunities
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing John Hancock Finan Opportunities does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For John Hancock Finan Opportunities digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Learning organization
- John Hancock Finan Opportunities is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at John Hancock Finan Opportunities is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at John Hancock Finan Opportunities emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Weaknesses of John Hancock Finan Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of John Hancock Finan Opportunities are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of John Hancock Finan Opportunities, 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, John Hancock Finan Opportunities needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as John Hancock Finan Opportunities is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of John Hancock Finan Opportunities products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, John Hancock Finan Opportunities needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on John Hancock Finan Opportunities ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of John Hancock Finan Opportunities is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but John Hancock Finan Opportunities needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help John Hancock Finan Opportunities to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
John Hancock Finan Opportunities Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of John Hancock Finan Opportunities are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at John Hancock Finan Opportunities can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Buying journey improvements
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects John Hancock Finan Opportunities can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, John Hancock Finan Opportunities can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that John Hancock Finan Opportunities operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Loyalty marketing
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
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. John Hancock Finan Opportunities can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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. John Hancock Finan Opportunities can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, John Hancock Finan Opportunities is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. John Hancock Finan Opportunities can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats John Hancock Finan Opportunities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of John Hancock Finan Opportunities are -
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.
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. John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities prominent markets.
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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of John Hancock Finan Opportunities
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of John Hancock Finan Opportunities.
Environmental challenges
– John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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. John Hancock Finan Opportunities can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors 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. John Hancock Finan Opportunities can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of John Hancock Finan Opportunities Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities 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 John Hancock Finan Opportunities needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
