SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Perpetual Equity (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Perpetual Equity is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Perpetual Equity can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Perpetual Equity, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Perpetual Equity
2. Improving business portfolio management of Perpetual Equity
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Perpetual Equity
Strengths of Perpetual Equity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Perpetual Equity are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Perpetual Equity is present in almost all the verticals within the Investment Services industry. This has provided Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Perpetual Equity has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Perpetual Equity 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Perpetual Equity has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Perpetual Equity staying ahead in the Investment Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Perpetual Equity emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Perpetual Equity in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Perpetual Equity has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Perpetual Equity to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry
– Perpetual Equity is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Investment Services
– Perpetual Equity is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Perpetual Equity in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Perpetual Equity has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Perpetual Equity to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Perpetual Equity 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry
– Perpetual Equity has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Perpetual Equity to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Investment Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Perpetual Equity to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Perpetual Equity 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.
Weaknesses of Perpetual Equity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Perpetual Equity are -
Employees’ less understanding of Perpetual Equity strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Perpetual Equity 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Perpetual Equity is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Perpetual Equity to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Perpetual Equity has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Investment Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 Perpetual Equity supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Perpetual Equity is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Perpetual Equity vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Perpetual Equity products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Perpetual Equity needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Perpetual Equity is just above the Investment 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Perpetual Equity needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Perpetual Equity can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Perpetual Equity is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Perpetual Equity is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Investment Services industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Perpetual Equity has some of the most successful models in the Investment Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Perpetual Equity should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Perpetual Equity 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 Investment Services industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Perpetual Equity, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Perpetual Equity has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Perpetual Equity Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Perpetual Equity are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Perpetual Equity is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Perpetual Equity can utilize new technology in the field of Investment Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Perpetual Equity in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Investment Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Perpetual Equity can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Investment Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
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 Perpetual Equity 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Perpetual Equity has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Perpetual Equity to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Perpetual Equity to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Perpetual Equity 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Perpetual Equity 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, Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Perpetual Equity has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Investment Services industry. This can help Perpetual Equity to build a more holistic ecosystem for Perpetual Equity products in the Investment Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Perpetual Equity can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Perpetual Equity operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Investment Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Perpetual Equity in the Investment Services industry. Now Perpetual Equity can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Perpetual Equity can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Investment Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Perpetual Equity can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Perpetual Equity External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Perpetual Equity are -
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 Perpetual Equity in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Perpetual Equity has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Perpetual Equity needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Investment Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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 Perpetual Equity business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Perpetual Equity 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 Investment Services industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Perpetual Equity in Investment Services industry. The Investment 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Perpetual Equity is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Perpetual Equity 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 Investment Services industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Perpetual Equity 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.
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, Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity prominent markets.
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. Perpetual Equity needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Perpetual Equity 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Perpetual Equity Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity 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 Perpetual Equity needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.