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 – increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, 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 -
Organizational Resilience of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
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.
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.
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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 -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Morgan Stanley Emerging 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. Morgan Stanley Emerging 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
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.
Employees’ less understanding of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Morgan Stanley Emerging 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 Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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.
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services 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.
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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed to increase its market reach. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
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 -
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.
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. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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. Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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.
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.
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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Morgan Stanley Emerging Closed 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.
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.
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.
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.
