Prudential Global Short Duration HY (GHY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Prudential Global Short Duration HY (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Prudential Global Short Duration HY is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Prudential Global Short Duration HY
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Prudential Global Short Duration HY can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Prudential Global Short Duration HY, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Prudential Global Short Duration HY
2. Improving business portfolio management of Prudential Global Short Duration HY
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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY
Strengths of Prudential Global Short Duration HY | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Prudential Global Short Duration HY are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Prudential Global Short Duration HY in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Prudential Global Short Duration HY has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Prudential Global Short Duration HY to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Prudential Global Short Duration HY
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Prudential Global Short Duration HY does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Misc. Financial Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Innovation driven organization
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Prudential Global Short Duration HY comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High brand equity
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Prudential Global Short Duration HY to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Prudential Global Short Duration HY staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Prudential Global Short Duration HY digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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
- Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Prudential Global Short Duration HY emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Prudential Global Short Duration HY | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Prudential Global Short Duration HY are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Prudential Global Short Duration HY has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Prudential Global Short Duration HY should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Prudential Global Short Duration HY products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Prudential Global Short Duration HY needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Prudential Global Short Duration HY is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Prudential Global Short Duration HY vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Prudential Global Short Duration HY strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Prudential Global Short Duration HY, 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.
High dependence on Prudential Global Short Duration HY ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Prudential Global Short Duration HY still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Prudential Global Short Duration HY has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Prudential Global Short Duration HY is planning to shift buying processes online.
Prudential Global Short Duration HY Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Prudential Global Short Duration HY are -
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. Prudential Global Short Duration HY can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Prudential Global Short Duration HY can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Prudential Global Short Duration HY operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Prudential Global Short Duration HY to increase its market reach. Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Prudential Global Short Duration HY to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Prudential Global Short Duration HY has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Prudential Global Short Duration HY to build a more holistic ecosystem for Prudential Global Short Duration HY products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Prudential Global Short Duration HY External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Prudential Global Short Duration HY are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY prominent markets.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Prudential Global Short Duration HY in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
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 Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
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. Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY.
Environmental challenges
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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. Prudential Global Short Duration HY can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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.
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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Prudential Global Short Duration HY has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Prudential Global Short Duration HY needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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. Prudential Global Short Duration HY can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Prudential Global Short Duration HY Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY 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 Prudential Global Short Duration HY needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.