Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref
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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref
Strengths of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref are -
Learning organization
- Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Training and development
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Weaknesses of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref, 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, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref are -
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. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref to increase its market reach. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref are -
Regulatory challenges
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
Increasing wage structure of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref
– 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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.
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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref 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 Gabelli Equity Trust Inc Ph Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.