Insurance Australia ADR (IAUGD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Insurance Australia ADR (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Insurance Australia ADR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Insurance Australia ADR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Insurance Australia ADR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Insurance Australia ADR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Insurance Australia ADR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Insurance Australia ADR
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 Insurance Australia ADR
Strengths of Insurance Australia ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Insurance Australia ADR are -
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Insurance Australia ADR digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Analytics focus
– Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Insurance Australia ADR is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Insurance Australia ADR has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Insurance Australia ADR to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Insurance Australia ADR to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Insurance Australia ADR has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Insurance Australia ADR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Insurance Australia ADR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Insurance Australia ADR in the sector have low bargaining power. Insurance Australia ADR has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Insurance Australia ADR to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Insurance Australia ADR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Insurance Australia ADR staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Learning organization
- Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Insurance Australia ADR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Insurance Australia ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Insurance Australia ADR are -
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 Insurance Australia ADR supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Insurance Australia ADR is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Insurance Australia ADR vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Insurance Australia ADR needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Insurance Australia ADR can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Insurance Australia ADR is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Insurance Australia ADR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Insurance Australia ADR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Insurance Australia ADR 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Insurance Australia ADR has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Insurance Australia ADR 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.
High dependence on Insurance Australia ADR ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Insurance Australia ADR still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Insurance Australia ADR has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Insurance Australia ADR is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Insurance Australia ADR needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Insurance Australia ADR to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Insurance Australia ADR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Insurance Australia ADR are -
Loyalty marketing
– Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Insurance Australia ADR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Insurance Australia ADR is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Insurance Australia ADR 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.
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. Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Insurance Australia ADR in the industry. Now Insurance Australia ADR can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Insurance Australia ADR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Insurance Australia ADR to build a more holistic ecosystem for Insurance Australia ADR products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Insurance Australia ADR 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Insurance Australia ADR can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Insurance Australia ADR can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Threats Insurance Australia ADR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Insurance Australia ADR are -
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 Insurance Australia ADR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Insurance Australia ADR may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Insurance Australia ADR 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 industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Insurance Australia ADR is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Insurance Australia ADR.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Insurance Australia ADR with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Insurance Australia ADR 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, Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Insurance Australia ADR 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.
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. Insurance Australia ADR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Insurance Australia ADR 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 industry.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Insurance Australia ADR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR 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 Insurance Australia ADR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.