PICC Property and Casualty (PPCCY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for PICC Property and Casualty (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , PICC Property and Casualty is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of PICC Property and Casualty
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that PICC Property and Casualty can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the PICC Property and Casualty, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which PICC Property and Casualty 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 PICC Property and Casualty can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of PICC Property and Casualty
2. Improving business portfolio management of PICC Property and Casualty
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of PICC Property and Casualty
Strengths of PICC Property and Casualty | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of PICC Property and Casualty are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– PICC Property and Casualty has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled PICC Property and Casualty to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped PICC Property and Casualty to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– PICC Property and Casualty has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled PICC Property and Casualty to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– PICC Property and Casualty is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Organizational Resilience of PICC Property and Casualty
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing PICC Property and Casualty does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– PICC Property and Casualty has one of the best training and development program in 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 lead change in
– PICC Property and Casualty is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled PICC Property and Casualty in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– PICC Property and Casualty is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided PICC Property and Casualty 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– PICC Property and Casualty is one of the leading players in the 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of PICC Property and Casualty in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For PICC Property and Casualty digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. PICC Property and Casualty 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of PICC Property and Casualty in the sector have low bargaining power. PICC Property and Casualty has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps PICC Property and Casualty to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– PICC Property and Casualty is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of PICC Property and Casualty | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of PICC Property and Casualty are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, PICC Property and Casualty needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, PICC Property and Casualty is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help PICC Property and Casualty to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– PICC Property and Casualty 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that PICC Property and Casualty needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at PICC Property and Casualty can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as PICC Property and Casualty is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, PICC Property and Casualty has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract PICC Property and Casualty lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
PICC Property and Casualty has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As PICC Property and Casualty is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though PICC Property and Casualty has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. PICC Property and Casualty should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, PICC Property and Casualty 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.
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 PICC Property and Casualty supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, PICC Property and Casualty is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left PICC Property and Casualty vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of PICC Property and Casualty strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of PICC Property and Casualty 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.
PICC Property and Casualty Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of PICC Property and Casualty are -
Manufacturing automation
– PICC Property and Casualty can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at PICC Property and Casualty 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 industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– PICC Property and Casualty 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, PICC Property and Casualty can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help PICC Property and Casualty to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. PICC Property and Casualty 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. PICC Property and Casualty 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.
Loyalty marketing
– PICC Property and Casualty has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for PICC Property and Casualty in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– PICC Property and Casualty has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled PICC Property and Casualty to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help PICC Property and Casualty to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help PICC Property and Casualty to increase its market reach. PICC Property and Casualty will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for PICC Property and Casualty 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 PICC Property and Casualty to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for PICC Property and Casualty 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, PICC Property and Casualty can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that PICC Property and Casualty operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, PICC Property and Casualty is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. PICC Property and Casualty can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats PICC Property and Casualty External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of PICC Property and Casualty are -
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 PICC Property and Casualty business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. PICC Property and Casualty 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 industry are lowering. It can presents PICC Property and Casualty with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– PICC Property and Casualty 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. PICC Property and Casualty can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– PICC Property and Casualty has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, PICC Property and Casualty needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Regulatory challenges
– PICC Property and Casualty 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 industry regulations.
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 PICC Property and Casualty in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on PICC Property and Casualty 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 industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for PICC Property and Casualty in industry. The 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– PICC Property and Casualty 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, PICC Property and Casualty may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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 PICC Property and Casualty.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of PICC Property and Casualty Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at PICC Property and Casualty 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 PICC Property and Casualty 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 PICC Property and Casualty 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 PICC Property and Casualty 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 PICC Property and Casualty needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
