Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct Trust can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust
2. Improving business portfolio management of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust
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 BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust
Strengths of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust are -
Learning organization
- BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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 BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is one of the leading players in the 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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.
Ability to lead change in
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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 BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust lucrative customers.
High dependence on BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is just above the 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust are -
Loyalty marketing
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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 Utility Infrastruct Trust to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Leveraging digital technologies
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct Trust 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. BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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.
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 Utility Infrastruct Trust can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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 industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust in the industry. Now BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust to build a more holistic ecosystem for BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct 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.
Threats BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust 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.
Regulatory challenges
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust
– 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 BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust.
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 Utility Infrastruct 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct Trust prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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 industry and other sectors.
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 Utility Infrastruct Trust in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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.
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 Utility Infrastruct Trust business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Utility Infrastruct Trust Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BlackRock Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct 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 Utility Infrastruct Trust needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.