SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mid-Southern Bancorp (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mid-Southern Bancorp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices,
wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mid-Southern Bancorp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mid-Southern Bancorp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mid-Southern Bancorp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mid-Southern Bancorp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mid-Southern Bancorp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mid-Southern Bancorp
Strengths of Mid-Southern Bancorp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mid-Southern Bancorp are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Mid-Southern Bancorp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mid-Southern Bancorp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mid-Southern Bancorp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Analytics focus
– Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 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.
Learning organization
- Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Mid-Southern Bancorp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Mid-Southern Bancorp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mid-Southern Bancorp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Mid-Southern Bancorp is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Mid-Southern Bancorp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mid-Southern Bancorp is one of the leading players in the 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.
Training and development
– Mid-Southern Bancorp has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mid-Southern Bancorp is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mid-Southern Bancorp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Mid-Southern Bancorp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Mid-Southern Bancorp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mid-Southern Bancorp are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mid-Southern Bancorp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mid-Southern Bancorp to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mid-Southern Bancorp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Mid-Southern Bancorp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Mid-Southern Bancorp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mid-Southern Bancorp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Mid-Southern Bancorp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mid-Southern Bancorp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mid-Southern Bancorp is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Mid-Southern Bancorp needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mid-Southern Bancorp to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Mid-Southern Bancorp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mid-Southern Bancorp still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mid-Southern Bancorp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Mid-Southern Bancorp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mid-Southern Bancorp are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mid-Southern Bancorp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Mid-Southern Bancorp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mid-Southern Bancorp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Mid-Southern Bancorp can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Mid-Southern Bancorp in the industry. Now Mid-Southern Bancorp 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, Mid-Southern Bancorp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mid-Southern Bancorp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mid-Southern Bancorp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Mid-Southern Bancorp can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mid-Southern Bancorp to increase its market reach. Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Mid-Southern Bancorp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mid-Southern Bancorp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Mid-Southern Bancorp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Mid-Southern Bancorp products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Mid-Southern Bancorp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mid-Southern Bancorp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Mid-Southern Bancorp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Mid-Southern Bancorp 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. Mid-Southern Bancorp can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Mid-Southern Bancorp.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mid-Southern Bancorp is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mid-Southern Bancorp 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mid-Southern Bancorp in industry. The 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mid-Southern Bancorp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp 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 Mid-Southern Bancorp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.