Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund (IVH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund
Strengths of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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)
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Weaknesses of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
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. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Threats Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund are -
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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund.
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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund
– 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
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. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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. Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund 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 Ivy High Income Opportunities Fund needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.