MFS Multimarket Income Trust (MMT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for MFS Multimarket Income Trust (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , MFS Multimarket Income Trust is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of MFS Multimarket Income Trust
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that MFS Multimarket Income Trust can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the MFS Multimarket Income Trust, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of MFS Multimarket Income Trust
2. Improving business portfolio management of MFS Multimarket Income Trust
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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust
Strengths of MFS Multimarket Income Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of MFS Multimarket Income Trust are -
Innovation driven organization
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Analytics focus
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 Misc. Financial Services 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Organizational Resilience of MFS Multimarket Income Trust
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing MFS Multimarket Income Trust does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of MFS Multimarket Income Trust comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For MFS Multimarket Income Trust digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Learning organization
- MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at MFS Multimarket Income Trust emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of MFS Multimarket Income Trust in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of MFS Multimarket Income Trust | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of MFS Multimarket Income Trust are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at MFS Multimarket Income Trust, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. MFS Multimarket Income Trust has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, MFS Multimarket Income Trust needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that MFS Multimarket Income Trust needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at MFS Multimarket Income Trust can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as MFS Multimarket Income Trust is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on MFS Multimarket Income Trust ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of MFS Multimarket Income Trust still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though MFS Multimarket Income Trust has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of MFS Multimarket Income Trust is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but MFS Multimarket Income Trust needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help MFS Multimarket Income Trust to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, MFS Multimarket Income Trust is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help MFS Multimarket Income Trust to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
MFS Multimarket Income Trust Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of MFS Multimarket Income Trust are -
Developing new processes and practices
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, MFS Multimarket Income Trust can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that MFS Multimarket Income Trust operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help MFS Multimarket Income Trust to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects MFS Multimarket Income Trust can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, MFS Multimarket Income Trust can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help MFS Multimarket Income Trust to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of MFS Multimarket Income Trust has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help MFS Multimarket Income Trust to build a more holistic ecosystem for MFS Multimarket Income Trust products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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. MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Threats MFS Multimarket Income Trust External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust in the Misc. Financial Services 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, MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– MFS Multimarket Income Trust has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that MFS Multimarket Income Trust is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of MFS Multimarket Income Trust
– 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust.
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.
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. MFS Multimarket Income Trust needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of MFS Multimarket Income Trust Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust 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 MFS Multimarket Income Trust needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.