Maiden Holdings (MHLD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Insurance (Life)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maiden Holdings (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maiden Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maiden Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maiden Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maiden Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maiden Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Insurance (Life) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maiden Holdings
Strengths of Maiden Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Maiden Holdings are -
Training and development
– Maiden Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Financial industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Maiden Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Insurance (Life) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Maiden Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Maiden Holdings 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Maiden Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Maiden Holdings staying ahead in the Insurance (Life) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Maiden Holdings 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 Insurance (Life) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Maiden Holdings in Insurance (Life) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Maiden Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Insurance (Life) sector.
Ability to lead change in Insurance (Life)
– Maiden Holdings is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Life) industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Insurance (Life) industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Maiden Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Insurance (Life) industry
– Maiden Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Maiden Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Insurance (Life) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Maiden Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Maiden Holdings is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Life) 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Insurance (Life) industry
– Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings 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.
Weaknesses of Maiden Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maiden Holdings are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Maiden Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Insurance (Life) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Maiden Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Maiden Holdings is just above the Insurance (Life) 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Maiden Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Maiden Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Maiden Holdings to provide better information regarding Insurance (Life) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Maiden Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Insurance (Life) 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Maiden Holdings has high operating costs in the Insurance (Life) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Maiden Holdings lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Insurance (Life) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maiden Holdings 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Maiden Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Maiden Holdings don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Maiden Holdings 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 (Life) industry over the last five years. Maiden Holdings 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 (Life) industry, Maiden Holdings 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Maiden Holdings 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.
Maiden Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Maiden Holdings are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Maiden Holdings 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 (Life) industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Maiden Holdings 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Maiden Holdings to increase its market reach. Maiden Holdings 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Maiden Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Insurance (Life) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Maiden Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Insurance (Life) industry. This can help Maiden Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Maiden Holdings products in the Insurance (Life) 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, Maiden Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Maiden Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Insurance (Life) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Maiden Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Insurance (Life) 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.
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. Maiden Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Maiden Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Insurance (Life) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Maiden Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Maiden Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Maiden Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Insurance (Life) sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Insurance (Life) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Maiden Holdings 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. Maiden Holdings 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Maiden Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Maiden Holdings are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Maiden Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Insurance (Life) sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Maiden Holdings is facing in Insurance (Life) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Maiden Holdings 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Maiden Holdings in Insurance (Life) industry. The Insurance (Life) 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Maiden Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Insurance (Life) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Maiden Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Insurance (Life) 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.
Increasing wage structure of Maiden Holdings
– 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 Maiden Holdings.
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.
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. Maiden Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Insurance (Life) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Maiden Holdings 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. Maiden Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Insurance (Life) industry.
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 Maiden Holdings.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Insurance (Life) industry are lowering. It can presents Maiden Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Insurance (Life) sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Insurance (Life) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maiden Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maiden Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings 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 Maiden Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.