SWOT Analysis: The Vanguard Group

UnitedHealth Group (UHG) is a managed health care organization that is ranked number 14 on Fortune magazine’s top 500 companies in the United States (unitedhealthgroup.com, 2015). The company offers a variety of products and services through both United Healthcare and OptumRx. United Healthcare is the largest health carrier in the United States (unitedhealthgroup.com, 2015). The company serves approximately 75 million individuals nationwide (unitedhealthgroup.com, 2015). In 2014, the company had an operating earnings of 10.3 billion dollars (unitedhealthgroup.com, 2015).

It is evident Vanguard aspires to be an analytical competitor in the investment world. It is challenging each business unit to conduct predictive and prescriptive analytics. Analyzing client and employee behaviors on the top priorities. Business decisions that were once made by gut-check now requires data as a source of proof. Vanguard has historically been a slow-and-steady business where decisions are made in consensus and new strategies has a cycle time of months or years. It operated at extremely thin margin to make sure it can keep operational costs at a bare minimum for its clients. That mindset officially changed when it opened its Innovation Center in center-city last year which will work closely with academics and consultant firms to bring R&D ideas to the forefront.

Alternative format is providing material in another setup or different format that is acceptable to the member. Amerigroup ensure members to access information on available treatment options and alternatives, and member-specific materials presented in a manner appropriate to member’s or potential member’s ability to understand.

The firm primarily provides its services to investment companies. It also caters to pooled investment vehicles, corporations, individuals, retirement plan sponsors, institutional investors, separate account institutional clients, and financial advisors. The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios. It also manages mutual funds, variable annuities, and exchange traded funds. The firm invests in the public equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It employs a combination of fundamental and quantitative analysis to create its portfolio. The firm employs a combination of in-house and external research to make its investments. The Vanguard Group, Inc. was founded in May 1975 and is based in Malvern, Pennsylvania with additional offices in Charlotte, North Carolina; Scottsdale, Arizona; Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Brisbane, Australia; Hong Kong; London, England; Melbourne, Australia; Paris, France; Perth, Australia; Singapore; Sydney, Australia; Tokyo, Japan; Toronto, Canada, and Zurich,

John Bogle is the founder of the Vanguard Group and the president of the Bogle financial Markets research center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and has 20 million investors in about 170 countries. Vanguard is an investment company with the largest mutual fund organization. His business approach to negotiation is putting the people interest first and this is done by building trust and staying true to their mission statement. He believes in simplicity and common sense. He and his business partners developed a partnership where the goal is to create wealth for its clients and keep cost low. What is unique about this company it how the shareholders are the owner not outside companies. Vanguard is client-focused and few investment companies can

The Vanguard Group, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1975 by John C. Bogle and has grown to become one of the largest investments companies in the world. As of June 30, 2016, the company has more than $3.5 trillion in global assets, with more than 20 million investors served by 14,000 employees, known as crew members. (Fast facts about Vanguard). Vanguard leverages its technology to support various types of investors through websites and apps for personal investors and web portals for its institutional investors, along with a modern phone center and operational area. One of the reasons that Vanguard has been able to be able to grow to this size, without greatly increasing the number of employees in recent years

One of CanGo’s major strengths is that roughly 80 percent of their sales come from Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory (“Financial Information,” n.d.). Having such a high percentage of their sales coming from JIT inventory allows CanGo to keep their overhead expenses low while still ensuring their products are still available. One of the ways that this lowers their overhead is by reducing the warehouse space needed. Since most of the inventory arrives just in time to be shipped, there is no need to have a place to store it. Keeping their JIT inventory at roughly 80 percent also helps CanGo to serve their customers faster and more efficiently by giving them more control over the manufacturing process. This control makes it easier to quickly respond to any changes in the customer’s needs (Conrad, n.d.).

Existing businesses such as All4Sports can benefit from a SWOT analysis. The SWOT matrix allows evaluation of the four areas and how they are interconnected. A SWOT analysis is a good way to gather and organize information from different sectors of the business in a coherent and cohesive manner and a good starting point for a larger strategic plan.

On the other hand, some portfolios do not represent a shareholders profit in a market. Such portfolios are not based on market capitalization. Their aim is to give a different result from what the market has. This is known as the actively managed fund strategy. Unlike the index tracker funds, the actively managed fund manager is actively involved in the market. They may be able to detect when stocks are over-priced or under-priced, hence, they may be able to pick out those stocks which yield the highest dividends and invest in them. [Monevator “the investor” (2008)].

The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) uses stages of change to integrate processes and principles of change across major theories of intervention, hence the term ‘transtheoretical’. This model of change predicts a person 's success or failure in achieving a proposed behaviour change. It tries to explains why the change "stuck" or on the other hand why the change was not made. It brilliantly puts together various steps of transformation and describes how an individual brings about change in his/her behaviour.

Amazon.com has a responsibility to manage its operations for the benefit of its stakeholders. Stakeholders comprise not only the shareholders of the stock of the company, but also the employees, customers, suppliers, trade associations, and community. The decisions made by amazon.com may be influenced by the government, activist groups, and the media, all who have their own agendas and duties to the people they serve (Kimmich, 2012). Each stakeholder has a link with Amazon.com and this association is the source of the stakeholder’s power to affect the decisions of Amazon.com. The distributed business model of the company ensures that no stakeholder has a level of importance that could singly change the direction of the company, but the way that the mass of web users, media, and governments interpret their activity could influence the company’s objectives (Schmitz and ILO, 2005).

SWOT analysis has been identified as a defective tool used in the strategic planning due to its unsystematic and its non-quantitative nature that which does not have a predictive power. The Meta-SWOT has been introduced as an alternative because it does not consider market as one of the major determinants of the environment, but gives an opportunity in the resources and the potential in establishing the competitive advantage. The Meta-SWOT is crucial in making various decisions and how they can be utilized in future. The resources and capabilities are usually utilized based on the VRO method, they are categorized based on rarity, inability to imitate, and the company. The criteria used to analyze the market are ensured that it matches the

Secondary resources might include a literature review of books, newspapers, articles and information from databases. Data gathering is significant as it is the basis for findings and conclusions, which are then used to make recommendations. When gathering data, it is important to pay attention to ethical data collection requirements and practises.

A SWOT analysis is “a structured planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats involved in a project or in a business venture.”(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT analysis, 03/11/14). A swot analysis can also be used to examine a person’s attributes. The strengths and weaknesses usually are internal factors whereas threats and opportunities are mainly external.

Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX)’s size does provide a competitive advantage that could transform to sustainable growth over a longer period of time. Larger alternative asset managers have been the recipients of a tendency to consolidate assets, which is expected to continue onward. Blackstone 's 2-and-20 fee structures on assets under management give it significant operating leverage, and allow it to support excellent margins among rapid growth. Blackstone is the leading option for many pension funds, endowments, family offices, etc. Having the “Blackstone” brand name as a leading competitive advantage.