General American Investors Co Pref (GAM_pb) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for General American Investors Co Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , General American Investors Co Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of General American Investors Co Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that General American Investors Co Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the General American Investors Co Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of General American Investors Co Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref
Strengths of General American Investors Co Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of General American Investors Co Pref are -
Training and development
– General American Investors Co 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– General American Investors Co Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled General American Investors Co Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped General American Investors Co Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the General American Investors Co 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– General American Investors Co 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For General American Investors Co Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. General American Investors Co Pref 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that General American Investors Co Pref 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.
Organizational Resilience of General American Investors Co Pref
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing General American Investors Co Pref does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– General American Investors Co Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. General American Investors Co 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.
Learning organization
- General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at General American Investors Co Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– General American Investors Co 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– General American Investors Co Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – General American Investors Co 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of General American Investors Co Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of General American Investors Co Pref are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of General American Investors Co 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at General American Investors Co Pref 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, General American Investors Co Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of General American Investors Co Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of General American Investors Co 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– General American Investors Co 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of General American Investors Co Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but General American Investors Co Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help General American Investors Co Pref to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 General American Investors Co Pref supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, General American Investors Co Pref is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left General American Investors Co Pref vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
General American Investors Co Pref 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As General American Investors Co Pref is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, General American Investors Co Pref has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
General American Investors Co Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of General American Investors Co Pref are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects General American Investors Co Pref can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for General American Investors Co Pref 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.
Loyalty marketing
– General American Investors Co 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.
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 General American Investors Co 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help General American Investors Co Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help General American Investors Co Pref to increase its market reach. General American Investors Co 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at General American Investors Co Pref 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.
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 General American Investors Co Pref in the industry. Now General American Investors Co Pref can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, General American Investors Co Pref 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 General American Investors Co Pref to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– General American Investors Co 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.
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. General American Investors Co Pref can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, General American Investors Co 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.
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. General American Investors Co Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats General American Investors Co Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of General American Investors Co Pref are -
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 General American Investors Co Pref.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– General American Investors Co 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on General American Investors Co Pref 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, General American Investors Co Pref 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– General American Investors Co Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, General American Investors Co 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.
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. General American Investors Co Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for General American Investors Co Pref 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.
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. General American Investors Co 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.
Regulatory challenges
– General American Investors Co 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, General American Investors Co Pref 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 General American Investors Co Pref prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents General American Investors Co Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of General American Investors Co Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co 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 General American Investors Co Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.