Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed
2. Improving business portfolio management of BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed
Strengths of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Analytics focus
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Learning organization
- BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Innovation driven organization
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Weaknesses of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
High dependence on BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed are -
Loyalty marketing
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
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 Muni Intermediate Closed can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate 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.
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 Muni Intermediate Closed in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
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 Muni Intermediate 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Manufacturing automation
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Threats BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
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 Muni Intermediate Closed business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Muni Intermediate Closed.
Environmental challenges
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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. BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
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 Muni Intermediate Closed can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BlackRock Muni Intermediate Closed Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BlackRock Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate 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 Muni Intermediate Closed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.