Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur
2. Improving business portfolio management of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur
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 Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur
Strengths of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Learning organization
- Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Weaknesses of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur lucrative customers.
High dependence on Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Crumrine Preferred Secur supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
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 Crumrine Preferred Secur can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur to build a more holistic ecosystem for Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur to increase its market reach. Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
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. Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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. Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
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 Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Threats Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur are -
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 Crumrine Preferred Secur business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Crumrine Preferred Secur.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
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 Crumrine Preferred Secur in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur
– 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur prominent markets.
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. Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Flaherty Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur 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 Crumrine Preferred Secur needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
