SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Rivernorth Opportunities (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Rivernorth Opportunities is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rivernorth Opportunities
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Rivernorth Opportunities can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rivernorth Opportunities, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Rivernorth Opportunities
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rivernorth Opportunities
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 Rivernorth Opportunities
Strengths of Rivernorth Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rivernorth Opportunities are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Rivernorth Opportunities 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 lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Rivernorth Opportunities is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Rivernorth Opportunities in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rivernorth Opportunities has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Rivernorth Opportunities is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
High brand equity
– Rivernorth Opportunities has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rivernorth Opportunities to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Rivernorth Opportunities emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Rivernorth Opportunities is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Rivernorth Opportunities has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Rivernorth Opportunities is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Rivernorth Opportunities in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Rivernorth Opportunities has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Rivernorth Opportunities to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Rivernorth Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rivernorth Opportunities are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Rivernorth Opportunities, 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Rivernorth Opportunities 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. Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Rivernorth Opportunities products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Rivernorth Opportunities needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Rivernorth Opportunities needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Rivernorth Opportunities has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Rivernorth Opportunities strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Rivernorth Opportunities is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Rivernorth Opportunities, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rivernorth Opportunities has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Rivernorth Opportunities Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Rivernorth Opportunities are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rivernorth Opportunities 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
– Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Rivernorth Opportunities can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rivernorth Opportunities operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Rivernorth Opportunities to increase its market reach. Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
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 Rivernorth Opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Rivernorth Opportunities can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Rivernorth Opportunities can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rivernorth Opportunities in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Rivernorth Opportunities can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Rivernorth Opportunities has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Rivernorth Opportunities to build a more holistic ecosystem for Rivernorth Opportunities products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rivernorth Opportunities is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Threats Rivernorth Opportunities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Rivernorth Opportunities are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rivernorth Opportunities is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
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 Rivernorth Opportunities business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Rivernorth Opportunities in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rivernorth Opportunities has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
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 Rivernorth Opportunities.
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. Rivernorth Opportunities needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Rivernorth Opportunities 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rivernorth Opportunities Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities 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 Rivernorth Opportunities needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
