SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Equity Trustees (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Equity Trustees is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Equity Trustees can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Equity Trustees, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Equity Trustees 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 Equity Trustees can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Equity Trustees
2. Improving business portfolio management of Equity Trustees
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Equity Trustees
Strengths of Equity Trustees | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Equity Trustees are -
Innovation driven organization
– Equity Trustees is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry
– Equity Trustees 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 lead change in Investment Services
– Equity Trustees is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Equity Trustees in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Equity Trustees is present in almost all the verticals within the Investment Services industry. This has provided Equity Trustees 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.
Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Equity Trustees digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Equity Trustees 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Equity Trustees comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Equity Trustees in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Equity Trustees has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Equity Trustees to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Equity Trustees has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Equity Trustees have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Equity Trustees has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Equity Trustees to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Equity Trustees has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Equity Trustees staying ahead in the Investment Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Equity Trustees 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Equity Trustees is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Equity Trustees | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Equity Trustees are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Equity Trustees 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Equity Trustees is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Equity Trustees needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Equity Trustees to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Equity Trustees strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Equity Trustees don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High dependence on Equity Trustees ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Equity Trustees still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Investment Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Equity Trustees has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Equity Trustees needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Equity Trustees can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Equity Trustees is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Equity Trustees, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Equity Trustees has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Equity Trustees is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Investment Services industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Equity Trustees has high operating costs in the Investment Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Equity Trustees lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Equity Trustees products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Equity Trustees needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Equity Trustees is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Equity Trustees to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Equity Trustees has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Investment Services industry over the last five years. Equity Trustees 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.
Equity Trustees Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Equity Trustees are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Equity Trustees has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Equity Trustees to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Equity Trustees to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Equity Trustees 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Equity Trustees can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Investment 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Equity Trustees can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Equity Trustees can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Equity Trustees can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
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. Equity Trustees can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Equity Trustees 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 Investment Services industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Equity Trustees has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Investment Services industry. This can help Equity Trustees to build a more holistic ecosystem for Equity Trustees products in the Investment Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Equity Trustees 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 Equity Trustees to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Equity Trustees 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Equity Trustees can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Investment 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Equity Trustees is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Equity Trustees can utilize new technology in the field of Investment Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Equity Trustees can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Equity Trustees operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
Threats Equity Trustees External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Equity Trustees are -
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 Equity Trustees.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Equity Trustees 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Equity Trustees is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Equity Trustees in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Equity Trustees has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Equity Trustees needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Investment 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Equity Trustees 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 Investment Services industry.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Equity Trustees
– 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 Equity Trustees.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Equity Trustees may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Investment Services sector.
Environmental challenges
– Equity Trustees 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. Equity Trustees can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment 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
– Equity Trustees 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 Investment Services industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Equity Trustees in Investment Services industry. The Investment 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Equity Trustees Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Equity Trustees 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 Equity Trustees 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 Equity Trustees 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 Equity Trustees 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 Equity Trustees needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.