Bell Financial Group (BFG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bell Financial Group (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bell Financial Group is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bell Financial Group

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bell Financial Group can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bell Financial Group, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bell Financial Group
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bell Financial Group
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 Bell Financial Group

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Strengths of Bell Financial Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Bell Financial Group are -

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Bell Financial Group has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Bell Financial Group 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– Bell Financial Group is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Bell Financial Group 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.

Ability to lead change in Investment Services

– Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Training and development

– Bell Financial Group 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry

– Bell Financial Group is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Organizational Resilience of Bell Financial Group

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bell Financial Group does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bell Financial Group digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bell Financial Group 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Bell Financial Group in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

– Bell Financial Group has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bell Financial Group to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Bell Financial Group comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment Services 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.

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Weaknesses of Bell Financial Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Bell Financial Group are -

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Bell Financial Group 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.

Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bell Financial Group 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Bell Financial Group, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Investment 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Bell Financial Group has high operating costs in the Investment Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bell Financial Group lucrative customers.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Bell Financial Group is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Bell Financial Group needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bell Financial Group to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Need for greater diversity

– Bell Financial Group 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Bell Financial Group, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bell Financial Group has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Australia, Bell Financial Group needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Bell Financial Group 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bell Financial Group is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Bell Financial Group 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 dependence on Bell Financial Group ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Bell Financial Group still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Investment Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Bell Financial Group has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

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Bell Financial Group Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Bell Financial Group are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bell Financial Group 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

– Bell Financial Group 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

– Bell Financial Group can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Investment Services 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.

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. Bell Financial Group can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Buying journey improvements

– Bell Financial Group 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Bell Financial Group 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bell Financial Group 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bell Financial Group 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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 Bell Financial Group in the Investment Services industry. Now Bell Financial Group can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bell Financial Group is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Bell Financial Group 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bell Financial Group 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.

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Threats Bell Financial Group External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Bell Financial Group are -

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Bell Financial Group has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bell Financial Group 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Bell Financial Group is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Bell Financial Group 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 Investment 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Investment Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bell Financial Group can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Regulatory challenges

– Bell Financial Group 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.

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. Bell Financial Group 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Bell Financial Group 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.

Environmental challenges

– Bell Financial Group 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. Bell Financial Group can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services 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.

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. Bell Financial Group needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Bell Financial Group 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Bell Financial Group may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Investment Services sector.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bell Financial Group Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group 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 Bell Financial Group needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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