Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed
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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed
Strengths of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed are -
Training and development
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
High brand equity
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 recruit top talent
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Analytics focus
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Weaknesses of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed are -
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed to increase its market reach. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Threats Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed is facing in Misc. 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
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. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
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. Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed
– 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed.
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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed 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 Eaton Vance Senior Floating Closed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
