Hancock Holding Co ELKS (HBHCL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hancock Holding Co ELKS (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hancock Holding Co ELKS is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hancock Holding Co ELKS
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hancock Holding Co ELKS can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hancock Holding Co ELKS, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hancock Holding Co ELKS
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hancock Holding Co ELKS
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hancock Holding Co ELKS
Strengths of Hancock Holding Co ELKS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hancock Holding Co ELKS are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hancock Holding Co ELKS in the sector have low bargaining power. Hancock Holding Co ELKS has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hancock Holding Co ELKS to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hancock Holding Co ELKS to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Hancock Holding Co ELKS in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hancock Holding Co ELKS to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hancock Holding Co ELKS to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Hancock Holding Co ELKS staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
Analytics focus
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hancock Holding Co ELKS have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Weaknesses of Hancock Holding Co ELKS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hancock Holding Co ELKS are -
Need for greater diversity
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Hancock Holding Co ELKS has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Hancock Holding Co ELKS is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Hancock Holding Co ELKS to provide better information regarding 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, Hancock Holding Co ELKS needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Hancock Holding Co ELKS is just above the industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hancock Holding Co ELKS, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hancock Holding Co ELKS has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hancock Holding Co ELKS has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Hancock Holding Co ELKS should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Hancock Holding Co ELKS is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hancock Holding Co ELKS products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hancock Holding Co ELKS needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Hancock Holding Co ELKS has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Hancock Holding Co ELKS lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
Hancock Holding Co ELKS Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hancock Holding Co ELKS are -
Loyalty marketing
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hancock Holding Co ELKS has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Hancock Holding Co ELKS to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hancock Holding Co ELKS products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Hancock Holding Co ELKS is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hancock Holding Co ELKS can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hancock Holding Co ELKS to increase its market reach. Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hancock Holding Co ELKS to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Hancock Holding Co ELKS External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hancock Holding Co ELKS are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hancock Holding Co ELKS in industry. The 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.
Increasing wage structure of Hancock Holding Co ELKS
– 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS.
Regulatory challenges
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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. Hancock Holding Co ELKS can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
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. Hancock Holding Co ELKS needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hancock Holding Co ELKS has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hancock Holding Co ELKS needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Hancock Holding Co ELKS with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hancock Holding Co ELKS can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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.
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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hancock Holding Co ELKS Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS 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 Hancock Holding Co ELKS needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.