Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund (SMM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund
2. Improving business portfolio management of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund
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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund

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Strengths of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund are -

Highly skilled collaborators

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Ability to lead change in

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Learning organization

- Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund in the sector have low bargaining power. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

High brand equity

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Strong track record of project management in the industry

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

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Weaknesses of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund are -

Need for greater diversity

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.

High bargaining power of channel partners in industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 dependence on Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund is planning to shift buying processes online.

High dependence on existing supply chain

– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Skills based hiring in industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

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Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund in the industry. Now Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

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. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

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Threats Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund are -

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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund

– 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund in industry. The 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.

Environmental challenges

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.

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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

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. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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.

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. Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund 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 Salient Midstream & MLP Closed Fund needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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