Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mason Financial Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mason Financial Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mason Financial Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mason Financial Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mason Financial Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mason Financial Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mason Financial Holdings
Strengths of Mason Financial Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mason Financial Holdings are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mason Financial Holdings 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
– Mason Financial Holdings is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Mason Financial Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry
– Mason Financial Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mason Financial Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Investment Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mason Financial Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mason Financial Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Investment Services industry. This has provided Mason Financial Holdings a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Analytics focus
– Mason Financial Holdings 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 Hong Kong 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mason Financial Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Mason Financial Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mason Financial Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Mason Financial Holdings 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.
High brand equity
– Mason Financial Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mason Financial Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mason Financial Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mason Financial Holdings is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Mason Financial Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mason Financial Holdings are -
High dependence on Mason Financial Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mason Financial Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mason Financial Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Mason Financial Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mason Financial Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Mason Financial Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mason Financial Holdings to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mason Financial Holdings 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. Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Mason Financial Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mason Financial Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mason Financial Holdings to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Mason Financial Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mason Financial Holdings are -
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. Mason Financial Holdings 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. Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mason Financial Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mason Financial Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mason Financial Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mason Financial Holdings 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.
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. Mason Financial Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mason Financial Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Investment Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Mason Financial Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Threats Mason Financial Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mason Financial Holdings are -
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 Mason Financial Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Mason Financial Holdings needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Investment Services industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Environmental challenges
– Mason Financial Holdings 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. Mason Financial Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.
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.
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. Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mason Financial Holdings 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
– Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Increasing wage structure of Mason Financial Holdings
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Mason Financial Holdings.
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. Mason Financial Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mason Financial Holdings 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mason Financial Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings 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 Mason Financial Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
