Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jacobs Financial Grp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jacobs Financial Grp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jacobs Financial Grp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jacobs Financial Grp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jacobs Financial Grp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jacobs Financial Grp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jacobs Financial Grp
Strengths of Jacobs Financial Grp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jacobs Financial Grp are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jacobs Financial Grp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Organizational Resilience of Jacobs Financial Grp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Jacobs Financial Grp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jacobs Financial Grp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Jacobs Financial Grp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jacobs Financial Grp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Digital Transformation in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jacobs Financial Grp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jacobs Financial Grp is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jacobs Financial Grp is present in almost all the verticals within the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This has provided Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Learning organization
- Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jacobs Financial Grp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Ability to lead change in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty)
– Jacobs Financial Grp is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jacobs Financial Grp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jacobs Financial Grp in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Jacobs Financial Grp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jacobs Financial Grp are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Jacobs Financial Grp is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jacobs Financial Grp has high operating costs in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jacobs Financial Grp lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jacobs Financial Grp, in the dynamic environment of Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jacobs Financial Grp 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
Jacobs Financial Grp has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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, Jacobs Financial Grp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry over the last five years. Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jacobs Financial Grp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jacobs Financial Grp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jacobs Financial Grp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
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 Jacobs Financial Grp supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Jacobs Financial Grp is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Jacobs Financial Grp vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Jacobs Financial Grp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Jacobs Financial Grp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jacobs Financial Grp are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jacobs Financial Grp in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. Now Jacobs Financial Grp can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jacobs Financial Grp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jacobs Financial Grp can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jacobs Financial Grp can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Jacobs Financial Grp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jacobs Financial Grp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jacobs Financial Grp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jacobs Financial Grp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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 Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Jacobs Financial Grp 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. Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jacobs Financial Grp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This can help Jacobs Financial Grp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jacobs Financial Grp products in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jacobs Financial Grp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jacobs Financial Grp can utilize new technology in the field of Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Jacobs Financial Grp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jacobs Financial Grp are -
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 Jacobs Financial Grp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jacobs Financial Grp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry are lowering. It can presents Jacobs Financial Grp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jacobs Financial Grp 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.
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 Jacobs Financial Grp.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jacobs Financial Grp is facing in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jacobs Financial Grp in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. The Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jacobs Financial Grp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp 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 Jacobs Financial Grp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.