Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nicolet Bankshares Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nicolet Bankshares Inc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nicolet Bankshares Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nicolet Bankshares Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nicolet Bankshares Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nicolet Bankshares Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nicolet Bankshares Inc
Strengths of Nicolet Bankshares Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nicolet Bankshares Inc are -
Organizational Resilience of Nicolet Bankshares Inc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Nicolet Bankshares Inc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Learning organization
- Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nicolet Bankshares Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Nicolet Bankshares Inc staying ahead in the Regional Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Regional Banks 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
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Nicolet Bankshares Inc comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Regional Banks industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nicolet Bankshares Inc digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Weaknesses of Nicolet Bankshares Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nicolet Bankshares Inc are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Regional Banks industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Nicolet Bankshares Inc has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Nicolet Bankshares Inc is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Regional Banks industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Nicolet Bankshares Inc, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Regional Banks 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Regional Banks industry, Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nicolet Bankshares Inc has some of the most successful models in the Regional Banks industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Nicolet Bankshares Inc should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Nicolet Bankshares Inc is just above the Regional Banks 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Nicolet Bankshares Inc is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Nicolet Bankshares Inc to provide better information regarding Regional Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Nicolet Bankshares Inc, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Nicolet Bankshares Inc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Nicolet Bankshares Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Regional Banks industry, but Nicolet Bankshares Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Nicolet Bankshares Inc to focus more on services in the Regional Banks industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Nicolet Bankshares Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nicolet Bankshares Inc are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Regional Banks industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Nicolet Bankshares Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nicolet Bankshares Inc can utilize new technology in the field of Regional Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nicolet Bankshares Inc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Regional Banks industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Nicolet Bankshares Inc to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nicolet Bankshares Inc to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nicolet Bankshares Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help Nicolet Bankshares Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for Nicolet Bankshares Inc products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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.
Threats Nicolet Bankshares Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nicolet Bankshares Inc are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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. Nicolet Bankshares Inc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.
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. Nicolet Bankshares Inc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nicolet Bankshares Inc can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc.
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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Nicolet Bankshares Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Regional Banks industry.
Increasing wage structure of Nicolet Bankshares Inc
– 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nicolet Bankshares Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Regional Banks 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Regional Banks industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Nicolet Bankshares Inc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nicolet Bankshares Inc is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nicolet Bankshares Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc 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 Nicolet Bankshares Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.