Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed
2. Improving business portfolio management of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed
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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed
Strengths of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed are -
Learning organization
- BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Innovation driven organization
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Analytics focus
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Weaknesses of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Need for greater diversity
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed is planning to shift buying processes online.
BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed are -
Buying journey improvements
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
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. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
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. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed to build a more holistic ecosystem for BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Threats BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services 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.
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. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
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.
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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed.
Regulatory challenges
– BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed 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 BlackRock MuniYield Quality Closed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.