Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ellington Residential Mortgage is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ellington Residential Mortgage
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ellington Residential Mortgage can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ellington Residential Mortgage, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ellington Residential Mortgage
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ellington Residential Mortgage
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 Ellington Residential Mortgage
Strengths of Ellington Residential Mortgage | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ellington Residential Mortgage are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ellington Residential Mortgage has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ellington Residential Mortgage staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Ellington Residential Mortgage has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ellington Residential Mortgage to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ellington Residential Mortgage emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ellington Residential Mortgage is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Ellington Residential Mortgage is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Ellington Residential Mortgage is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ellington Residential Mortgage in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Ellington Residential Mortgage has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ellington Residential Mortgage to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ellington Residential Mortgage to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ellington Residential Mortgage in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Ellington Residential Mortgage is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Weaknesses of Ellington Residential Mortgage | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ellington Residential Mortgage are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ellington Residential Mortgage is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ellington Residential Mortgage is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ellington Residential Mortgage to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ellington Residential Mortgage, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ellington Residential Mortgage has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
High dependence on Ellington Residential Mortgage ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ellington Residential Mortgage has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ellington Residential Mortgage products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ellington Residential Mortgage needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Ellington Residential Mortgage needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ellington Residential Mortgage has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ellington Residential Mortgage should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ellington Residential Mortgage has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Ellington Residential Mortgage Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ellington Residential Mortgage are -
Loyalty marketing
– Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ellington Residential Mortgage has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Ellington Residential Mortgage to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ellington Residential Mortgage products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ellington Residential Mortgage has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ellington Residential Mortgage to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ellington Residential Mortgage to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Ellington Residential Mortgage can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ellington Residential Mortgage to increase its market reach. Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ellington Residential Mortgage in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Ellington Residential Mortgage can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ellington Residential Mortgage is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ellington Residential Mortgage can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Ellington Residential Mortgage External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ellington Residential Mortgage are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ellington Residential Mortgage has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
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
– Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
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. Ellington Residential Mortgage 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.
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 Ellington Residential Mortgage.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Ellington Residential Mortgage needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Ellington Residential Mortgage
– 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ellington Residential Mortgage may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ellington Residential Mortgage can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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.
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 Ellington Residential Mortgage in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ellington Residential Mortgage Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage 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 Ellington Residential Mortgage needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.