Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed (MSF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed
2. Improving business portfolio management of Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed
Strengths of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed are -
Innovation driven organization
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Analytics focus
– Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Training and development
– Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed are -
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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is just above the Misc. Financial Services 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Morgan Stanley Emerging 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. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
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. Morgan Stanley Emerging 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. Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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
– Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to build a more holistic ecosystem for Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Threats Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed are -
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.
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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed prominent markets.
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. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Morgan Stanley Emerging 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, Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
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. Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.