RAIT Financial A Pref (RASFP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for RAIT Financial A Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , RAIT Financial A Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption,
there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of RAIT Financial A Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that RAIT Financial A Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the RAIT Financial A Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of RAIT Financial A Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of RAIT Financial A Pref
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 RAIT Financial A Pref
Strengths of RAIT Financial A Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of RAIT Financial A Pref are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of RAIT Financial A Pref in the sector have low bargaining power. RAIT Financial A Pref has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps RAIT Financial A Pref to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of RAIT Financial A Pref in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Learning organization
- RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at RAIT Financial A Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Innovation driven organization
– RAIT Financial A Pref is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– RAIT Financial A Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – RAIT Financial A Pref staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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
– RAIT Financial A Pref is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For RAIT Financial A Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Weaknesses of RAIT Financial A Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of RAIT Financial A Pref are -
High dependence on RAIT Financial A Pref ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of RAIT Financial A Pref still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though RAIT Financial A Pref has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, RAIT Financial A Pref is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help RAIT Financial A Pref to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, RAIT Financial A Pref 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 industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of RAIT Financial A Pref is just above the 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as RAIT Financial A Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, RAIT Financial A Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at RAIT Financial A Pref, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. RAIT Financial A Pref has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of RAIT Financial A Pref products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, RAIT Financial A Pref needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
RAIT Financial A Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of RAIT Financial A Pref are -
Manufacturing automation
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
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. RAIT Financial A Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for RAIT Financial A Pref in the industry. Now RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref 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 industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. RAIT Financial A Pref 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. RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help RAIT Financial A Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Buying journey improvements
– RAIT Financial A Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, RAIT Financial A Pref can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Developing new processes and practices
– RAIT Financial A Pref can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help RAIT Financial A Pref to increase its market reach. RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Threats RAIT Financial A Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of RAIT Financial A Pref are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– RAIT Financial A Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Environmental challenges
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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. RAIT Financial A Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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 RAIT Financial A Pref.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
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. RAIT Financial A Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Increasing wage structure of RAIT Financial A Pref
– 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 RAIT Financial A Pref.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that RAIT Financial A Pref is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. RAIT Financial A Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on RAIT Financial A Pref 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of RAIT Financial A Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref 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 RAIT Financial A Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.