Great Elm Capital (GECC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Great Elm Capital (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Great Elm Capital is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Great Elm Capital
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Great Elm Capital can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Great Elm Capital, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Great Elm Capital
2. Improving business portfolio management of Great Elm Capital
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Great Elm Capital
Strengths of Great Elm Capital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Great Elm Capital are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Great Elm Capital has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Great Elm Capital to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Great Elm Capital to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Great Elm Capital is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Great Elm Capital is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Great Elm Capital 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.
Organizational Resilience of Great Elm Capital
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Great Elm Capital does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Great Elm Capital 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Great Elm Capital digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Great Elm Capital has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Great Elm Capital is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Great Elm Capital in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Great Elm Capital emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Great Elm Capital is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Great Elm Capital 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.
High brand equity
– Great Elm Capital has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Great Elm Capital to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Great Elm Capital has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Great Elm Capital have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Great Elm Capital | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Great Elm Capital are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Great Elm Capital 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Great Elm Capital is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Great Elm Capital needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Great Elm Capital to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Great Elm Capital is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Great Elm Capital, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Great Elm Capital is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Great Elm Capital to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services 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, Great Elm Capital needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Great Elm Capital, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Great Elm Capital has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Great Elm Capital is just above the Misc. Financial 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Great Elm Capital 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.
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 Great Elm Capital supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Great Elm Capital is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Great Elm Capital vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Great Elm Capital needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Great Elm Capital can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Great Elm Capital is planning to shift buying processes online.
Great Elm Capital Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Great Elm Capital are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Great Elm Capital 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Great Elm Capital 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Great Elm Capital can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Great Elm Capital can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Great Elm Capital operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Great Elm Capital has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Great Elm Capital to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Great Elm Capital to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Great Elm Capital can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Great Elm Capital in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Great Elm Capital 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.
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 Great Elm Capital 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital 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. Great Elm Capital can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Great Elm Capital to increase its market reach. Great Elm Capital will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Threats Great Elm Capital External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Great Elm Capital are -
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. Great Elm Capital 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
– Great Elm Capital 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Great Elm Capital 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. Great Elm Capital can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial 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. Great Elm Capital needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Great Elm Capital 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Great Elm Capital with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Great Elm Capital 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Great Elm Capital can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Great Elm Capital business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Great Elm Capital 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Great Elm Capital in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Great Elm Capital Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital 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 Great Elm Capital needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
