First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu (FAM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu
2. Improving business portfolio management of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu
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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu
Strengths of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Organizational Resilience of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Training and development
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High brand equity
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is one of the leading players in the Misc. 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 Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Loyalty marketing
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Buying journey improvements
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu to increase its market reach. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Manufacturing automation
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu to build a more holistic ecosystem for First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Increasing wage structure of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu
– 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu.
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. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Regulatory challenges
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu.
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. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu 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 First Trust/Aberdeen Global Opportu needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.