National Art Exchange (NAEX) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for National Art Exchange (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , National Art Exchange is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of National Art Exchange
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that National Art Exchange can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the National Art Exchange, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of National Art Exchange
2. Improving business portfolio management of National Art Exchange
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 National Art Exchange
Strengths of National Art Exchange | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of National Art Exchange are -
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– National Art Exchange is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– National Art Exchange has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. National Art Exchange 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.
Organizational Resilience of National Art Exchange
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing National Art Exchange does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– National Art Exchange is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of National Art Exchange 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– National Art Exchange is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided National Art Exchange 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– National Art Exchange has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – National Art Exchange 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.
Learning organization
- National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at National Art Exchange emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of National Art Exchange in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of National Art Exchange | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of National Art Exchange are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
National Art Exchange 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, National Art Exchange 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As National Art Exchange 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of National Art Exchange, 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.
High dependence on National Art Exchange ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– National Art Exchange 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, National Art Exchange needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of National Art Exchange 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, National Art Exchange is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left National Art Exchange vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
National Art Exchange Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of National Art Exchange are -
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. National Art Exchange can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. National Art Exchange can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at National Art Exchange 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.
Loyalty marketing
– National Art Exchange 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for National Art Exchange 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– National Art Exchange 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.
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 National Art Exchange 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, National Art Exchange 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help National Art Exchange to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, National Art Exchange can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that National Art Exchange operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Threats National Art Exchange External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of National Art Exchange are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange prominent markets.
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. National Art Exchange needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on National Art Exchange 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.
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. National Art Exchange 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.
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 National Art Exchange in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– National Art Exchange 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. National Art Exchange can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Regulatory challenges
– National Art Exchange 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– National Art Exchange has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, National Art Exchange 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, National Art Exchange 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for National Art Exchange 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.
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. National Art Exchange can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of National Art Exchange Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange 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 National Art Exchange needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.