Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome
2. Improving business portfolio management of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome
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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome
Strengths of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome are -
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Weaknesses of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
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. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome to build a more holistic ecosystem for Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
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. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Increasing wage structure of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome
– 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome.
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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferredome needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.