Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , 1st Prestige Wealth is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of 1st Prestige Wealth
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that 1st Prestige Wealth can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 1st Prestige Wealth, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of 1st Prestige Wealth
2. Improving business portfolio management of 1st Prestige Wealth
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of 1st Prestige Wealth
Strengths of 1st Prestige Wealth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 1st Prestige Wealth are -
Diverse revenue streams
– 1st Prestige Wealth is present in almost all the verticals within the Investment Services industry. This has provided 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– 1st Prestige Wealth has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – 1st Prestige Wealth staying ahead in the Investment Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 1st Prestige Wealth in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– 1st Prestige Wealth has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of 1st Prestige Wealth comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment 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.
Learning organization
- 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at 1st Prestige Wealth emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– 1st Prestige Wealth is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of 1st Prestige Wealth in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. 1st Prestige Wealth has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps 1st Prestige Wealth to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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 Investment Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Training and development
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Weaknesses of 1st Prestige Wealth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 1st Prestige Wealth are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though 1st Prestige Wealth has some of the most successful models in the Investment Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. 1st Prestige Wealth should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of 1st Prestige Wealth, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Investment Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at 1st Prestige Wealth, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. 1st Prestige Wealth has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on 1st Prestige Wealth ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of 1st Prestige Wealth still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Investment Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though 1st Prestige Wealth has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that 1st Prestige Wealth needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at 1st Prestige Wealth can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 1st Prestige Wealth is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, 1st Prestige Wealth has high operating costs in the Investment Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract 1st Prestige Wealth lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, 1st Prestige Wealth has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Investment Services industry over the last five years. 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, 1st Prestige Wealth 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 Investment Services industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As 1st Prestige Wealth is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Investment Services industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of 1st Prestige Wealth is just above the Investment 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.
1st Prestige Wealth Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of 1st Prestige Wealth are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for 1st Prestige Wealth in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Investment Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. 1st Prestige Wealth can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, 1st Prestige Wealth is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. 1st Prestige Wealth can utilize new technology in the field of Investment Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, 1st Prestige Wealth can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that 1st Prestige Wealth operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– 1st Prestige Wealth can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– 1st Prestige Wealth can develop new processes and procedures in Investment 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 1st Prestige Wealth has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled 1st Prestige Wealth to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 1st Prestige Wealth 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, 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. 1st Prestige Wealth 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. 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of 1st Prestige Wealth has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Investment Services industry. This can help 1st Prestige Wealth to build a more holistic ecosystem for 1st Prestige Wealth products in the Investment Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
Threats 1st Prestige Wealth External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of 1st Prestige Wealth are -
Environmental challenges
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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. 1st Prestige Wealth can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services 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 1st Prestige Wealth in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on 1st Prestige Wealth 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 Investment Services industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Investment Services industry are lowering. It can presents 1st Prestige Wealth with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Investment Services sector.
Regulatory challenges
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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 Investment Services industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– 1st Prestige Wealth has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, 1st Prestige Wealth needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Investment Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing wage structure of 1st Prestige Wealth
– 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 1st Prestige Wealth.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– 1st Prestige Wealth 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 Investment Services industry.
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. 1st Prestige Wealth needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth 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 1st Prestige Wealth needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
