Cohen & Steers Quality Income (RQI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cohen & Steers Quality Income (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cohen & Steers Quality Income is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cohen & Steers Quality Income
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cohen & Steers Quality Income can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cohen & Steers Quality Income, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cohen & Steers Quality Income
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cohen & Steers Quality Income
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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income
Strengths of Cohen & Steers Quality Income | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cohen & Steers Quality Income are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cohen & Steers Quality Income in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Cohen & Steers Quality Income has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cohen & Steers Quality Income to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cohen & Steers Quality Income emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cohen & Steers Quality Income in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Cohen & Steers Quality Income
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cohen & Steers Quality Income does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cohen & Steers Quality Income has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Training and development
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
High brand equity
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cohen & Steers Quality Income to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Misc. Financial Services 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.
Weaknesses of Cohen & Steers Quality Income | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cohen & Steers Quality Income are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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, Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
High dependence on Cohen & Steers Quality Income ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cohen & Steers Quality Income still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cohen & Steers Quality Income has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cohen & Steers Quality Income is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cohen & Steers Quality Income is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Cohen & Steers Quality Income needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cohen & Steers Quality Income to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cohen & Steers Quality Income, 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cohen & Steers Quality Income products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cohen & Steers Quality Income needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Cohen & Steers Quality Income strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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. Cohen & Steers Quality Income should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Cohen & Steers Quality Income needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Cohen & Steers Quality Income Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cohen & Steers Quality Income are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cohen & Steers Quality Income to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Cohen & Steers Quality Income can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cohen & Steers Quality Income to increase its market reach. Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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, Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
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. Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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. Cohen & Steers Quality Income can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
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. Cohen & Steers Quality Income can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cohen & Steers Quality Income is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cohen & Steers Quality Income are -
Increasing wage structure of Cohen & Steers Quality Income
– 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income.
Regulatory challenges
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
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.
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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
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. Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cohen & Steers Quality Income is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cohen & Steers Quality Income Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income 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 Cohen & Steers Quality Income needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
