Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref (DFP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Investment Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref
Strengths of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref are -
High brand equity
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is one of the leading players in the Investment 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
Analytics focus
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Investment 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Investment Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
Weaknesses of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is just above the Investment 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Investment Services industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Investment Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Investment Services industry.
Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Investment Services industry over the last five years. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref are -
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. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can develop new processes and procedures in Investment 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can utilize new technology in the field of Investment Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Investment 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Investment Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Investment Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
Threats Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Investment Services industry and other sectors.
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. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 wage structure of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref
– 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Investment Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Investment Services sector.
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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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. Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Investment Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref 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 Flaherty and Crumrine Dynamic Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
