Great Southern Bancorp (GSBC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Regional Banks
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Great Southern Bancorp (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Great Southern Bancorp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Great Southern Bancorp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Great Southern Bancorp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Great Southern Bancorp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Great Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Great Southern Bancorp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Great Southern Bancorp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Great Southern Bancorp
Strengths of Great Southern Bancorp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Great Southern Bancorp are -
Training and development
– Great Southern Bancorp 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Great Southern Bancorp is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Great Southern Bancorp is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks 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 Southern Bancorp 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)
– Great Southern Bancorp has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Great Southern Bancorp staying ahead in the Regional Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Great Southern Bancorp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Great Southern Bancorp in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Great Southern Bancorp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Great Southern Bancorp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Great Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Great Southern Bancorp 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Great Southern Bancorp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Great Southern Bancorp has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Great Southern Bancorp in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Regional Banks industry
– Great Southern Bancorp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Great Southern Bancorp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Regional Banks industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Great Southern Bancorp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Great Southern Bancorp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Great Southern Bancorp are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Great Southern Bancorp, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Great Southern Bancorp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Great Southern Bancorp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Great Southern Bancorp to provide better information regarding Regional Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Great Southern Bancorp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Great Southern Bancorp don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Great Southern Bancorp is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Regional Banks industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Great Southern Bancorp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Regional Banks industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Great Southern Bancorp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Great Southern Bancorp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Great Southern Bancorp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. Great Southern Bancorp even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Great Southern Bancorp 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 Regional Banks industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Great Southern Bancorp has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Regional Banks industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Great Southern Bancorp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Great Southern Bancorp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Great Southern Bancorp 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Great Southern Bancorp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Regional Banks 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.
Great Southern Bancorp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Great Southern Bancorp are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Regional Banks industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Great Southern Bancorp can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Great Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Regional Banks industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Great Southern Bancorp in the Regional Banks industry. Now Great Southern Bancorp 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, Great Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Great Southern Bancorp can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Regional Banks sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Great Southern Bancorp 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 Regional Banks industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Regional Banks industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Great Southern Bancorp 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. Great Southern Bancorp 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Great Southern Bancorp to increase its market reach. Great Southern Bancorp 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Great Southern Bancorp 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Great Southern Bancorp 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.
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 Southern Bancorp 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Great Southern Bancorp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Regional Banks industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Great Southern Bancorp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help Great Southern Bancorp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Great Southern Bancorp products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Great Southern Bancorp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Great Southern Bancorp are -
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Great Southern Bancorp in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Great Southern Bancorp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Great Southern Bancorp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Regional Banks 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
– Great Southern Bancorp 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Great Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Great Southern Bancorp 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 Regional Banks industry regulations.
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 Southern Bancorp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Great Southern Bancorp in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Great Southern Bancorp
– 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 Great Southern Bancorp.
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 Southern Bancorp 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Great Southern Bancorp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Great Southern Bancorp is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Great Southern Bancorp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Great Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp 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 Southern Bancorp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.