SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Altur Inv (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Altur Inv is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Altur Inv can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Altur Inv, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Altur 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.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Altur Inv can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Altur Inv
2. Improving business portfolio management of Altur Inv
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Altur Inv
Strengths of Altur Inv | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Altur Inv are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Altur 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 Altur Inv have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Altur Inv has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Altur Inv to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Altur Inv
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Altur Inv does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Altur Inv has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Altur 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Altur Inv in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Altur Inv has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Altur Inv to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Altur 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry
– Altur Inv has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Altur Inv to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Investment Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Altur Inv to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Altur Inv digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Altur 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Altur Inv in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Altur Inv 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 Altur Inv is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Altur Inv emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Altur 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
– Altur Inv is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Altur Inv | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Altur Inv are -
Need for greater diversity
– Altur Inv has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Altur Inv 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 Altur Inv lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of France, Altur Inv needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Altur 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. Altur 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.
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 Altur Inv supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Altur Inv is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Altur Inv vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Altur Inv 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Altur Inv is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Altur Inv needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Altur Inv to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Altur Inv, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Altur Inv has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Altur Inv, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Altur Inv needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Altur 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.
Altur Inv Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Altur Inv are -
Buying journey improvements
– Altur 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Altur 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Altur 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Altur Inv 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Altur Inv can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Altur Inv operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Altur Inv can develop new processes and procedures in Investment Services industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
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. Altur 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. Altur 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Altur Inv can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Altur 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.
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 Altur 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Altur Inv has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Investment Services industry. This can help Altur Inv to build a more holistic ecosystem for Altur Inv products in the Investment Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Altur 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 Altur Inv to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Altur Inv to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Altur Inv can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Altur Inv External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Altur Inv are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Altur 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.
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, Altur Inv 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Altur Inv is facing in Investment Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Investment Services industry are lowering. It can presents Altur 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Altur 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.
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 Altur Inv business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Altur Inv in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline 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. Altur Inv needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Altur 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Altur Inv has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Altur 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.
Environmental challenges
– Altur Inv 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. Altur Inv can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Altur Inv Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Altur 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 Altur 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 Altur 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 Altur 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 Altur Inv needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
