SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for MuniYield Arizona (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , MuniYield Arizona is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of MuniYield Arizona
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that MuniYield Arizona can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the MuniYield Arizona, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of MuniYield Arizona
2. Improving business portfolio management of MuniYield Arizona
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 MuniYield Arizona
Strengths of MuniYield Arizona | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of MuniYield Arizona are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– MuniYield Arizona has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. MuniYield Arizona 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.
High brand equity
– MuniYield Arizona has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled MuniYield Arizona to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– MuniYield Arizona is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of MuniYield Arizona in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the MuniYield Arizona 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.
Organizational Resilience of MuniYield Arizona
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing MuniYield Arizona does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of MuniYield Arizona 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– MuniYield Arizona has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled MuniYield Arizona to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped MuniYield Arizona to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– MuniYield Arizona is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– MuniYield Arizona is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided MuniYield Arizona 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.
Learning organization
- MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at MuniYield Arizona emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– MuniYield Arizona 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.
Weaknesses of MuniYield Arizona | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of MuniYield Arizona are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, MuniYield Arizona needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of MuniYield Arizona products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, MuniYield Arizona needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As MuniYield Arizona 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at MuniYield Arizona, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. MuniYield Arizona has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
MuniYield Arizona 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of MuniYield Arizona is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but MuniYield Arizona needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help MuniYield Arizona to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of MuniYield Arizona, 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at MuniYield Arizona 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as MuniYield Arizona is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of MuniYield Arizona 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.
MuniYield Arizona Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of MuniYield Arizona are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help MuniYield Arizona to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects MuniYield Arizona can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for MuniYield Arizona 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.
Buying journey improvements
– MuniYield Arizona 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, MuniYield Arizona can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that MuniYield Arizona operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help MuniYield Arizona to increase its market reach. MuniYield Arizona 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– MuniYield Arizona 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.
Loyalty marketing
– MuniYield Arizona 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, MuniYield Arizona is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. MuniYield Arizona 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.
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 MuniYield Arizona in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now MuniYield Arizona can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. MuniYield Arizona can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats MuniYield Arizona External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of MuniYield Arizona are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that MuniYield Arizona is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– MuniYield Arizona has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, MuniYield Arizona needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Consumer confidence and its impact on MuniYield Arizona 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.
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 MuniYield Arizona.
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.
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. MuniYield Arizona needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, MuniYield Arizona 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.
Increasing wage structure of MuniYield Arizona
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of MuniYield Arizona.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for MuniYield Arizona 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.
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 MuniYield Arizona business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. MuniYield Arizona 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.
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. MuniYield Arizona can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of MuniYield Arizona Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona 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 MuniYield Arizona needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
