SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Southern Missouri (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Southern Missouri is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Southern Missouri
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Southern Missouri can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Southern Missouri, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Southern Missouri 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 Southern Missouri can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Southern Missouri
2. Improving business portfolio management of Southern Missouri
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Southern Missouri
Strengths of Southern Missouri | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Southern Missouri are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Southern Missouri is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks 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.
High brand equity
– Southern Missouri has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Southern Missouri to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Southern Missouri is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Southern Missouri 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Southern Missouri in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Southern Missouri comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Southern Missouri has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Regional Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Southern Missouri have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Southern Missouri 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Southern Missouri has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Southern Missouri 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Southern Missouri 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
– Southern Missouri 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Southern Missouri is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Southern Missouri is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Southern Missouri | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Southern Missouri are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Southern Missouri needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Southern Missouri has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. Southern Missouri 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.
High dependence on Southern Missouri ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Southern Missouri still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Regional Banks industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Southern Missouri 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, Southern Missouri is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Southern Missouri to provide better information regarding Regional Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Southern Missouri 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 Regional Banks industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Southern Missouri 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Southern Missouri products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Southern Missouri needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Southern Missouri is just above the Regional Banks 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Southern Missouri has some of the most successful models in the Regional Banks industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Southern Missouri should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Southern Missouri 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 Regional Banks industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Southern Missouri, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Southern Missouri has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Southern Missouri Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Southern Missouri are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Southern Missouri is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Southern Missouri can utilize new technology in the field of Regional Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Southern Missouri has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Southern Missouri to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Southern Missouri to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Southern Missouri 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.
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. Southern Missouri can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Southern Missouri has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help Southern Missouri to build a more holistic ecosystem for Southern Missouri products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Southern Missouri can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Regional Banks 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Southern Missouri 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Southern Missouri can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Southern Missouri 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, Southern Missouri 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 Southern Missouri to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Southern Missouri 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Southern Missouri 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 Regional Banks industry.
Developing new processes and practices
– Southern Missouri can develop new processes and procedures in Regional Banks 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.
Threats Southern Missouri External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Southern Missouri are -
Increasing wage structure of Southern Missouri
– 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 Southern Missouri.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Southern Missouri 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Southern Missouri 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 Southern Missouri prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Southern Missouri may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.
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 Southern Missouri in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Southern Missouri with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Southern Missouri in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.
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 Southern Missouri business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Southern Missouri needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Southern Missouri 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 Regional Banks industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Southern Missouri can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Southern Missouri 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 Regional Banks industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Southern Missouri 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 Regional Banks industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Southern Missouri Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Southern Missouri 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 Southern Missouri 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 Southern Missouri 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 Southern Missouri 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 Southern Missouri needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.