SCE Trust III Pref (SCE_ph) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for SCE Trust III Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , SCE Trust III Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SCE Trust III Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that SCE Trust III Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the SCE Trust III Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of SCE Trust III Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref
Strengths of SCE Trust III Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of SCE Trust III Pref are -
Ability to lead change in
– SCE Trust III Pref 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 SCE Trust III Pref in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of SCE Trust III Pref in the sector have low bargaining power. SCE Trust III Pref has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps SCE Trust III Pref to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– SCE Trust III Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – SCE Trust III 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– SCE Trust III Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. SCE Trust III Pref has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– SCE Trust III Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled SCE Trust III Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped SCE Trust III Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– SCE Trust III 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For SCE Trust III Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. SCE Trust III 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that SCE Trust III Pref 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
– SCE Trust III 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– SCE Trust III Pref has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of SCE Trust III Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– SCE Trust III 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
– SCE Trust III Pref is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Weaknesses of SCE Trust III Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SCE Trust III Pref are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at SCE Trust III Pref, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. SCE Trust III Pref has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on SCE Trust III Pref ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as SCE Trust III Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As SCE Trust III Pref 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of SCE Trust III 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, SCE Trust III 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, SCE Trust III Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of SCE Trust III Pref products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, SCE Trust III Pref needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at SCE Trust III 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though SCE Trust III Pref 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. SCE Trust III Pref should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
SCE Trust III Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of SCE Trust III Pref are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at SCE Trust III 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
– SCE Trust III 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help SCE Trust III Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– SCE Trust III Pref 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.
Manufacturing automation
– SCE Trust III 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– SCE Trust III 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, SCE Trust III Pref can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that SCE Trust III Pref operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help SCE Trust III Pref to increase its market reach. SCE Trust III 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.
Loyalty marketing
– SCE Trust III Pref 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 industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. SCE Trust III 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. SCE Trust III 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for SCE Trust III Pref 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 SCE Trust III Pref 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 SCE Trust III 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.
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. SCE Trust III Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats SCE Trust III Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of SCE Trust III Pref are -
Regulatory challenges
– SCE Trust III Pref 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– SCE Trust III 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.
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.
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. SCE Trust III Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, SCE Trust III Pref 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 SCE Trust III Pref prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref.
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. SCE Trust III Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– SCE Trust III Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, SCE Trust III 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that SCE Trust III Pref is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. SCE Trust III 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on SCE Trust III 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.
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 SCE Trust III Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SCE Trust III Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III 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 SCE Trust III Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.