In-Depth SWOT Analysis of Morgan Stanley – An American Multinational Investment Bank & Financial Services Company

Products & Services by Morgan Stanley 

Below are a few products of Morgan Stanley:

• Investment banking
• Sales and trading
• Commodities
• Prime brokerage
• Wealth management
• Investment management

Competitors of Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley is an investment bank and it also has close competitors in the market. Some of them are:

• Goldman Sachs 
• JP Morgan
• Bank of America
• Citigroup 
• Wells Fargo

Now that we know important facts about Morgan Stanley, we can look into the SWOT analysis of Morgan Stanley.

SWOT Analysis of Morgan Stanley

SWOT analysis of Morgan Stanley is the study of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the company. This will help the company understand strong factors for their growth, weakness, and threats to rectify them for further growth. 

To better understand the SWOT analysis of Morgan Stanley, refer to the infographics below:

Below is a step-by-step detailed guide to help you with the SWOT analysis of Morgan Stanley.

Strengths of Morgan Stanley

Certain abilities of an organization that are advantageous in capturing market share, attracting more customers, and maximising profits can be called the strengths of that organization.

• Distribution and Reach: The bank has more than 68,000 employees working at Morgan Stanley’s offices in more than 40+ countries. It has its reach in 3 divisions – Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management.
• Brand Reputation: Morgan Stanley has been in the business of banking since 1935. Also, with the variety of products and services like its major area which is investment banking, it is established as a leader in the industry. This helps the corporation to gain a reputation and get recognized easily.

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• Sustainable Approach: They offer sustainable investment products, foster innovative solutions, and provide actionable insights across sustainability issues.
• Work Culture: One of the top firms that value its people and give its employees opportunities to use their creativity, innovate every day, and embrace new perspectives to solve complex problems.
• Automation of Activities: Successful automation of banking activities with a well-developed IT structure and Infrastructure has made the overall efficiency better.
• Strong Digital Marketing Strategy: With a very strong online presence on every social media site has built a strong customer relationship. Want to know how social media works as a strength for Morgan Stanley? Then you must check out the benefits of social media marketing to get the answer to your query. 
• Financial Position: Morgan Stanley has had a strong financial position with consecutive profits in the past 5 years, with accumulated profit reserves.

Weaknesses of Morgan Stanley

The weaknesses are a major drawback that stops the organisation from performing at its optimum level. They are the areas in which businesses can make improvements. The major drawbacks are as follows:

• Large market in the US: Even though Morgan Stanley has operations in over 40 countries, they are mainly dependent on US activities. This overreliance on the US market is also seen as a weakness. If this market experiences a crisis, the effects for the bank might be enormous.
• Limited Success Across the Core Business: Although Morgan Stanley is one of the leading organizations in its industry it faces challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
• Need to Invest More in New Technologies: According to the country’s scale of expansion and the geographical areas Morgan Stanley needs to invest more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Currently, the investment in technology is not on par as per the vision of the company.
• Customer Service: Improper customer service, as well as lack of solving customer queries, can cause a negative image of the brand. This can either be through mouth publicity or by any other means.
• Decreasing Market Value: Morgan Stanley is facing decreasing market share as compared to its competitors JP Morgan. Its records could be when Morgan Stanley lost over 80% of its market value between 2007 and 2008 during the financial crisis.

Opportunities for Morgan Stanley

Opportunities are the favourable external factors that may give the organization a competitive advantage over others. The opportunities of Morgan Stanley are as follows: 

• Expansion to Other Global Markets: The company is planning to expand to more developing countries as well as European nations too. This serves them as an opportunity to acquire a new customer base.
• Development of Technology: Since the FinTech industry is growing at a very rapid pace, there are advancements in technologies too. Using these kinds of technologies can increase efficiency and decrease cost.
• New Customer Base Through Online Mode: As we saw the bank has a great online presence and its mobile banking app makes it convenient for the customers to access and deal with the bank through any part of the world. The bank can make use of this opportunity in knowing their customers better and their needs through data analysis.
• New Trends in Consumer Behaviour: With new customers based through online modes, customers of varied backgrounds will show different behaviour which can open up new markets for Morgan Stanley. It creates a great opportunity for the bank to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories. 
• Increasing Income: There has been an increase in average household income along with an increase in consumer spending following the recession. This will result in growth in Morgan Stanley’s target market with new customers that can be attracted towards the business.

Threats to Morgan Stanley

Threats are those factors that have the potential to provide harm to the organisation in any form. The threats of Morgan Stanley are as follows:

• Competitor Technical Advancements: New technological advancements by a few competitors within the sector constitute a threat to Morgan Stanley since customers who are drawn to this new technology may switch to competitors, reducing Morgan Stanley’s overall market share.
• Pandemic: As the bank provides investment and wealth facilities, financial losses incurred by companies as well as business owners can cause a threat to the bank in repayment of loans. 
• Increased Marketing Efforts: Due to the rise of digital marketing, there is an increasing number of promotional messages which are being sent by competitors. It clutters up the space, which leads to losing out on customers. You must also be well versed with a variety of digital marketing skills to get ahead of the competition.
• Financial Crisis: The company can face a financial crisis anytime in the future without its knowledge so to avoid trouble in such times it needs to have a proper financial study of its company and keep separate provisions for such times.
• Law Suits: Morgan Stanley has been facing several lawsuits for the past 21 years i.e. 2000 to 2021. The lawsuits are all because of unusual activities by the bank and if such activities continued will cost expensive to the company

This ends our in-depth SWOT analysis of Morgan Stanley. Let us conclude our learning below.