SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Prudential Pennsylvania (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Prudential Pennsylvania is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Prudential Pennsylvania
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Prudential Pennsylvania can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Prudential Pennsylvania, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Prudential Pennsylvania can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Prudential Pennsylvania
2. Improving business portfolio management of Prudential Pennsylvania
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 Prudential Pennsylvania
Strengths of Prudential Pennsylvania | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Prudential Pennsylvania are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Prudential Pennsylvania has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Regional Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Prudential Pennsylvania have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Prudential Pennsylvania is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Prudential Pennsylvania 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)
– Prudential Pennsylvania has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Prudential Pennsylvania in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Regional Banks
– Prudential Pennsylvania is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Regional Banks industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Prudential Pennsylvania in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Analytics focus
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Regional Banks industry
– Prudential Pennsylvania has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Prudential Pennsylvania to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Regional Banks industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Prudential Pennsylvania to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Prudential Pennsylvania
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Prudential Pennsylvania does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Prudential Pennsylvania has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Prudential Pennsylvania is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Weaknesses of Prudential Pennsylvania | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Prudential Pennsylvania are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Prudential Pennsylvania is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Regional Banks industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Prudential Pennsylvania is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Regional Banks industry, but Prudential Pennsylvania needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Prudential Pennsylvania to focus more on services in the Regional Banks industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Prudential Pennsylvania 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. Prudential Pennsylvania should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Prudential Pennsylvania, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Prudential Pennsylvania has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Prudential Pennsylvania 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. Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Prudential Pennsylvania needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Regional Banks industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Prudential Pennsylvania can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Prudential Pennsylvania is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Prudential Pennsylvania has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Prudential Pennsylvania has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Regional Banks 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 dependence on Prudential Pennsylvania ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Prudential Pennsylvania still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Regional Banks industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Prudential Pennsylvania has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Prudential Pennsylvania Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Prudential Pennsylvania are -
Buying journey improvements
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Prudential Pennsylvania to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Prudential Pennsylvania to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Regional Banks industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Prudential Pennsylvania 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. Prudential Pennsylvania 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. Prudential Pennsylvania can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Prudential Pennsylvania can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Regional Banks 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, Prudential Pennsylvania is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Regional Banks industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Prudential Pennsylvania in the Regional Banks industry. Now Prudential Pennsylvania can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Prudential Pennsylvania can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Prudential Pennsylvania External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Prudential Pennsylvania are -
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. Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
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. Prudential Pennsylvania needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Prudential Pennsylvania is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
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 Prudential Pennsylvania business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Regional Banks industry and other sectors.
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 Prudential Pennsylvania in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Prudential Pennsylvania.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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.
Environmental challenges
– Prudential Pennsylvania 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. Prudential Pennsylvania can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Prudential Pennsylvania prominent markets.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Prudential Pennsylvania Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Prudential Pennsylvania 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 Prudential Pennsylvania needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.