Great Western Bancorp Inc (GWB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Regional Banks
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Great Western Bancorp Inc (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Great Western Bancorp Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Great Western Bancorp Inc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Great Western Bancorp Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Great Western Bancorp Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Great Western Bancorp Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Great Western Bancorp Inc
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 Western Bancorp Inc
Strengths of Great Western Bancorp Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Great Western Bancorp Inc are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Great Western Bancorp Inc in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Great Western Bancorp Inc has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Great Western Bancorp Inc to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Great Western Bancorp Inc is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Training and development
– Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Great Western Bancorp Inc has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Regional Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Great Western Bancorp Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Great Western Bancorp Inc has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Great Western Bancorp Inc to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Great Western Bancorp Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Great Western Bancorp Inc in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Great Western Bancorp Inc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Great Western Bancorp Inc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Great Western Bancorp Inc is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Weaknesses of Great Western Bancorp Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Great Western Bancorp Inc are -
High dependence on Great Western Bancorp Inc ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Great Western Bancorp Inc still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Regional Banks industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Great Western Bancorp Inc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Great Western Bancorp Inc has some of the most successful models in the Regional Banks industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Great Western Bancorp Inc should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Western Bancorp Inc supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Great Western Bancorp Inc is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Great Western Bancorp Inc vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Great Western Bancorp Inc has high operating costs in the Regional Banks industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Great Western Bancorp Inc lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Great Western Bancorp Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Regional Banks industry, but Great Western Bancorp Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Great Western Bancorp Inc to focus more on services in the Regional Banks industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Regional Banks industry, Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Great Western Bancorp Inc is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Great Western Bancorp Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Great Western Bancorp Inc are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
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 Western Bancorp Inc in the Regional Banks industry. Now Great Western Bancorp Inc can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Great Western Bancorp Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help Great Western Bancorp Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for Great Western Bancorp Inc products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
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 Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Great Western Bancorp Inc can develop new processes and procedures in Regional Banks 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Great Western Bancorp Inc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Great Western Bancorp Inc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Great Western Bancorp Inc to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Great Western Bancorp Inc to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Great Western Bancorp Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Great Western Bancorp Inc can utilize new technology in the field of Regional Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Great Western Bancorp Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Great Western Bancorp Inc are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc prominent markets.
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 Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Great Western Bancorp Inc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Regional Banks industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Great Western Bancorp Inc 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.
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 Western Bancorp Inc in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Great Western Bancorp Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Great Western Bancorp Inc is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Great Western Bancorp Inc
– 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 Western Bancorp Inc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Regional Banks industry and other sectors.
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 Western Bancorp Inc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Western Bancorp Inc 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 Great Western Bancorp Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Great Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc 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 Western Bancorp Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
