Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty
2. Improving business portfolio management of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty
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 Preferred Oppty
Strengths of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty are -
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 Preferred Oppty in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial 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.
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 Preferred Oppty 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Preferred Oppty can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
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 Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty to build a more holistic ecosystem for Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty are -
Regulatory challenges
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty
– 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 Preferred Oppty.
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 Preferred Oppty.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty 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.
Environmental challenges
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Preferred Oppty business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Preferred Oppty 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty 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 Preferred Oppty needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.