Freddie Mac Pfd Z (FMCKJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Freddie Mac Pfd Z (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Freddie Mac Pfd Z is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Freddie Mac Pfd Z
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Freddie Mac Pfd Z can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Freddie Mac Pfd Z, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Freddie Mac Pfd Z
2. Improving business portfolio management of Freddie Mac Pfd Z
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Freddie Mac Pfd Z
Strengths of Freddie Mac Pfd Z | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Freddie Mac Pfd Z are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Freddie Mac Pfd Z staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z is one of the leading players in the 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.
High brand equity
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Freddie Mac Pfd Z to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Freddie Mac Pfd Z digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Freddie Mac Pfd Z have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Freddie Mac Pfd Z emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Ability to lead change in
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Freddie Mac Pfd Z in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Freddie Mac Pfd Z | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Freddie Mac Pfd Z are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Freddie Mac Pfd Z, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Freddie Mac Pfd Z, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Freddie Mac Pfd Z has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Freddie Mac Pfd Z has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z is just above the 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
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Freddie Mac Pfd Z strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Freddie Mac Pfd Z has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Freddie Mac Pfd Z lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Freddie Mac Pfd Z needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Freddie Mac Pfd Z can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Freddie Mac Pfd Z is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Freddie Mac Pfd Z Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Freddie Mac Pfd Z are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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. Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 industry.
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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Freddie Mac Pfd Z in the industry. Now Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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, Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Freddie Mac Pfd Z can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Freddie Mac Pfd Z to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Freddie Mac Pfd Z to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Freddie Mac Pfd Z has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Freddie Mac Pfd Z to build a more holistic ecosystem for Freddie Mac Pfd Z products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Freddie Mac Pfd Z is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Freddie Mac Pfd Z can utilize new technology in the field of 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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, Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Freddie Mac Pfd Z are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Freddie Mac Pfd Z can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 industry and other sectors.
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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z.
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. Freddie Mac Pfd Z needs to understand the core reasons impacting the 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Freddie Mac Pfd Z is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Freddie Mac Pfd Z can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 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. Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Freddie Mac Pfd Z may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Freddie Mac Pfd Z Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z 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 Freddie Mac Pfd Z needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.