360 Capital Total Return Fund (TOT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for 360 Capital Total Return Fund (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , 360 Capital Total Return Fund is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of 360 Capital Total Return Fund
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that 360 Capital Total Return Fund can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 360 Capital Total Return Fund, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 360 Capital Total Return 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.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of 360 Capital Total Return Fund can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of 360 Capital Total Return Fund
2. Improving business portfolio management of 360 Capital Total Return Fund
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of 360 Capital Total Return Fund
Strengths of 360 Capital Total Return Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 360 Capital Total Return Fund are -
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– 360 Capital Total Return 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the 360 Capital Total Return 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of 360 Capital Total Return Fund in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. 360 Capital Total Return Fund has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps 360 Capital Total Return Fund to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – 360 Capital Total Return Fund staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled 360 Capital Total Return Fund in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- 360 Capital Total Return 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 360 Capital Total Return Fund is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at 360 Capital Total Return Fund emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of 360 Capital Total Return Fund comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial 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.
Innovation driven organization
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Training and development
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 360 Capital Total Return Fund in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For 360 Capital Total Return Fund digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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.
Weaknesses of 360 Capital Total Return Fund | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 360 Capital Total Return Fund are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of 360 Capital Total Return Fund is just above the Misc. Financial 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though 360 Capital Total Return Fund has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. 360 Capital Total Return Fund should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 360 Capital Total Return Fund supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, 360 Capital Total Return Fund is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left 360 Capital Total Return Fund vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on 360 Capital Total Return Fund ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of 360 Capital Total Return Fund still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though 360 Capital Total Return Fund has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, 360 Capital Total Return 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that 360 Capital Total Return Fund needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at 360 Capital Total Return Fund can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 360 Capital Total Return Fund is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at 360 Capital Total Return Fund, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. 360 Capital Total Return Fund has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of 360 Capital Total Return Fund products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, 360 Capital Total Return Fund needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at 360 Capital Total Return 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, 360 Capital Total Return Fund needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
360 Capital Total Return Fund has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial 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.
360 Capital Total Return Fund Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of 360 Capital Total Return Fund are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled 360 Capital Total Return Fund to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 360 Capital Total Return Fund to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, 360 Capital Total Return Fund is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. 360 Capital Total Return Fund can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. 360 Capital Total Return Fund can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at 360 Capital Total Return 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, 360 Capital Total Return Fund can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that 360 Capital Total Return Fund operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for 360 Capital Total Return 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– 360 Capital Total Return 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.
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 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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.
Loyalty marketing
– 360 Capital Total Return 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, 360 Capital Total Return 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 360 Capital Total Return 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects 360 Capital Total Return Fund can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial 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.
Threats 360 Capital Total Return Fund External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of 360 Capital Total Return Fund are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of 360 Capital Total Return Fund.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. 360 Capital Total Return Fund can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. 360 Capital Total Return Fund needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, 360 Capital Total Return 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 Misc. Financial Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on 360 Capital Total Return 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, 360 Capital Total Return Fund needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial 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.
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. 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents 360 Capital Total Return Fund with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for 360 Capital Total Return Fund in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial 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 360 Capital Total Return Fund is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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 360 Capital Total Return Fund prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– 360 Capital Total Return Fund 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of 360 Capital Total Return Fund Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at 360 Capital Total Return 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 360 Capital Total Return 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 360 Capital Total Return 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 360 Capital Total Return 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 360 Capital Total Return Fund needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
