Chimera Investment Pref A (CIM_pa) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Consumer Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Chimera Investment Pref A (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Chimera Investment Pref A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Chimera Investment Pref A
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Chimera Investment Pref A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chimera Investment Pref A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Chimera Investment Pref A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chimera Investment Pref A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Consumer Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Chimera Investment Pref A
Strengths of Chimera Investment Pref A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chimera Investment Pref A are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Chimera Investment Pref A in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Chimera Investment Pref A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chimera Investment Pref A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Chimera Investment Pref A is present in almost all the verticals within the Consumer Financial Services industry. This has provided Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Chimera Investment Pref A is one of the leading players in the Consumer 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.
Learning organization
- Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Chimera Investment Pref A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Digital Transformation in Consumer Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Chimera Investment Pref A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Organizational Resilience of Chimera Investment Pref A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Chimera Investment Pref A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Chimera Investment Pref A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Chimera Investment Pref A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Chimera Investment Pref A is one of the most innovative firm in Consumer Financial Services sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Consumer Financial Services industry
– Chimera Investment Pref A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Chimera Investment Pref A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Weaknesses of Chimera Investment Pref A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Chimera Investment Pref A are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Chimera Investment Pref A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Chimera Investment Pref A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Chimera Investment Pref A is one of the leading players in the Consumer 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 Consumer Financial Services industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Chimera Investment Pref A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Consumer 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Chimera Investment Pref A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry over the last five years. Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Chimera Investment Pref A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Chimera Investment Pref A to provide better information regarding Consumer Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Consumer Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Chimera Investment Pref A is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Consumer Financial Services industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Chimera Investment Pref A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Consumer 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Chimera Investment Pref A has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Consumer Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Chimera Investment Pref A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Consumer Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Chimera Investment Pref A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Chimera Investment Pref A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Chimera Investment Pref A, in the dynamic environment of Consumer Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Chimera Investment Pref A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Chimera Investment Pref A supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Chimera Investment Pref A is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Chimera Investment Pref A vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Chimera Investment Pref A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Chimera Investment Pref A are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Chimera Investment Pref A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Consumer Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Consumer Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Chimera Investment Pref A in the Consumer Financial Services industry. Now Chimera Investment Pref A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Chimera Investment Pref A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Chimera Investment Pref A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Consumer Financial Services sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
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 Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Chimera Investment Pref A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Chimera Investment Pref A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Consumer Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Chimera Investment Pref A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Chimera Investment Pref A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Chimera Investment Pref A to increase its market reach. Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Consumer Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Chimera Investment Pref A 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. Chimera Investment Pref A 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, Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Chimera Investment Pref A can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Chimera Investment Pref A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Chimera Investment Pref A can utilize new technology in the field of Consumer Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Chimera Investment Pref A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Chimera Investment Pref A are -
Increasing wage structure of Chimera Investment Pref A
– 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 Chimera Investment Pref A.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Chimera Investment Pref A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Consumer Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Chimera Investment Pref A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Consumer 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Consumer Financial Services industry regulations.
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 Chimera Investment Pref A.
Environmental challenges
– Chimera Investment Pref A 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. Chimera Investment Pref A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Consumer Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Chimera Investment Pref A may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Consumer Financial Services sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Chimera Investment Pref A 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Chimera Investment Pref A is facing in Consumer Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Chimera Investment Pref A in Consumer Financial Services industry. The Consumer 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.
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 Chimera Investment Pref A in the Consumer Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Chimera Investment Pref A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A 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 Chimera Investment Pref A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.