Blue Sky Alternative Inv (BLA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Blue Sky Alternative Inv (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Blue Sky Alternative Inv is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blue Sky Alternative Inv

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

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Strengths of Blue Sky Alternative Inv | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Blue Sky Alternative Inv are -

Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Blue Sky Alternative Inv digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.

Ability to lead change in Investment Services

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Blue Sky Alternative Inv in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Blue Sky Alternative Inv have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Training and development

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Analytics focus

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Investment Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.

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Weaknesses of Blue Sky Alternative Inv | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Blue Sky Alternative Inv are -

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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 decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Blue Sky Alternative Inv has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Investment Services industry over the last five years. Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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. Blue Sky Alternative Inv should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

Lack of clear differentiation of Blue Sky Alternative Inv products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Blue Sky Alternative Inv needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Blue Sky Alternative Inv is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blue Sky Alternative Inv vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Australia, Blue Sky Alternative Inv needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Blue Sky Alternative Inv strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

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Blue Sky Alternative Inv Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Blue Sky Alternative Inv are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv in the Investment Services industry. Now Blue Sky Alternative Inv can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Blue Sky Alternative Inv can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Loyalty marketing

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Buying journey improvements

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Blue Sky Alternative Inv is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Blue Sky Alternative Inv to increase its market reach. Blue Sky Alternative Inv will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blue Sky Alternative Inv to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Blue Sky Alternative Inv can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Blue Sky Alternative Inv operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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 Investment Services industry.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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. Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Blue Sky Alternative Inv are -

Shortening product life cycle

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

Regulatory challenges

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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. Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv.

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. Blue Sky Alternative Inv needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment 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.

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. Blue Sky Alternative Inv can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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 Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Blue Sky Alternative Inv 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Investment Services industry are lowering. It can presents Blue Sky Alternative Inv with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Investment Services sector.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blue Sky Alternative Inv Template, Example

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

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