Fincanna (FNNZF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fincanna (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fincanna is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fincanna can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fincanna, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fincanna 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 Fincanna can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fincanna
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fincanna
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 Fincanna
Strengths of Fincanna | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fincanna are -
Innovation driven organization
– Fincanna is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Training and development
– Fincanna 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.
Organizational Resilience of Fincanna
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Fincanna does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fincanna is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Fincanna 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fincanna 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.
Learning organization
- Fincanna 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 Fincanna is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fincanna emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fincanna 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fincanna 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 Fincanna have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fincanna digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fincanna 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Fincanna 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 Fincanna in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Fincanna is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Fincanna 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 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.
Weaknesses of Fincanna | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fincanna are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fincanna has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Fincanna should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Fincanna supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Fincanna is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Fincanna vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Fincanna ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Fincanna still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Fincanna has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fincanna is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Fincanna needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fincanna to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Fincanna, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Fincanna 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Fincanna has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fincanna 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 Fincanna lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Fincanna, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fincanna has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fincanna 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 industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Fincanna 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 Fincanna can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fincanna is planning to shift buying processes online.
Fincanna Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fincanna are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fincanna 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.
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. Fincanna 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. Fincanna 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.
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. Fincanna can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Fincanna 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Fincanna can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
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. Fincanna can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fincanna is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fincanna 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Fincanna 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
– Fincanna 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fincanna 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 Fincanna to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fincanna to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Fincanna 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Fincanna can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fincanna to increase its market reach. Fincanna 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.
Threats Fincanna External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fincanna are -
Increasing wage structure of Fincanna
– 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 Fincanna.
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 Fincanna in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Fincanna.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fincanna has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fincanna needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fincanna in industry. The 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 Fincanna 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.
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
– Fincanna 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fincanna is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Fincanna with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fincanna 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 industry.
Environmental challenges
– Fincanna 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. Fincanna can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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. Fincanna 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fincanna Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fincanna 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 Fincanna 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 Fincanna 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 Fincanna 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 Fincanna needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.