Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gabelli Dividend Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption,
increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gabelli Dividend Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gabelli Dividend Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gabelli Dividend Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gabelli Dividend Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref
Strengths of Gabelli Dividend Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gabelli Dividend Pref are -
High brand equity
– Gabelli Dividend Pref has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gabelli Dividend Pref to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gabelli Dividend 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Gabelli Dividend 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gabelli Dividend Pref is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Gabelli Dividend Pref 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Gabelli Dividend Pref 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 Gabelli Dividend Pref in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gabelli Dividend Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gabelli Dividend 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
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
Analytics focus
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gabelli Dividend Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Gabelli Dividend 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gabelli Dividend Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gabelli Dividend 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.
Weaknesses of Gabelli Dividend Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gabelli Dividend Pref are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gabelli Dividend 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Gabelli Dividend Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Gabelli Dividend 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gabelli Dividend 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gabelli Dividend Pref 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. Gabelli Dividend Pref should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Gabelli Dividend Pref is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Gabelli Dividend Pref, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gabelli Dividend Pref has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Gabelli Dividend Pref 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 Gabelli Dividend Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gabelli Dividend Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gabelli Dividend 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Gabelli Dividend 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.
Gabelli Dividend Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gabelli Dividend Pref are -
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 Gabelli Dividend Pref in the industry. Now Gabelli Dividend Pref can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gabelli Dividend Pref has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Gabelli Dividend Pref to build a more holistic ecosystem for Gabelli Dividend Pref products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gabelli Dividend Pref to increase its market reach. Gabelli Dividend 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gabelli Dividend Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Gabelli Dividend Pref can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gabelli Dividend Pref operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Gabelli Dividend 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gabelli Dividend 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 Gabelli Dividend 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.
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. Gabelli Dividend Pref 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. Gabelli Dividend Pref 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
Threats Gabelli Dividend Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gabelli Dividend Pref are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gabelli Dividend Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gabelli Dividend 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Gabelli Dividend 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.
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 Dividend 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.
Increasing wage structure of Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gabelli Dividend 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the 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. Gabelli Dividend Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gabelli Dividend 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 Gabelli Dividend Pref prominent markets.
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 Dividend Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gabelli Dividend Pref is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gabelli Dividend Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gabelli Dividend 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 Dividend 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 Dividend 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 Dividend 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 Dividend Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
