This Visa SWOT Analysis investigates the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats facing the American-based multinational financial service.
If you own a credit or debit card, it is highly possible that while looking at your card, you've thought, what's Visa? I know this because I've thought the same.
For many years, I used to wonder, although my bank isn't named Visa then, why does my debit and credit card have Visa written over them?
Today's article will answer all your questions related to Visa and its role since we will be conducting Visa SWOT Analysis in this article.
Before starting the SWOT analysis, let's discuss how Visa was formed, how it evolved, and its nature of operations.
Visa is an American-based multinational financial service that facilitates the transfer of funds electronically across the globe. Credit, debit, and prepaid cards are the tools it provides for electronic transactions.
After reading that, you must think that if Visa enables electronic transactions, it must have come into existence recently. This assumption is partly true. Let me discuss Visa's history with you so you know why your assumption is partly true.
The roots of Visa can be traced to 1958 when the Bank of America launched the Bankamericard as America's first credit card program. Soon the company grew as more middle-class consumers and merchants started availing of the credit services provided by Bankamericard.
In 1974 the company decided to move out of America and start international operations. After a year of international recognition, Bankamericard launched its debit card in 1975.
The operations kept spreading, and the company kept on growing. Then, a year later, in 1976, Bank of America gave up control of Bankamericard. Instead, the banks offering Bankamericard's debit and credit cards started managing the company.
Right after the change in management, a significant observable change was observed when the company decided to change its name to Visa.
From there onwards, the company operated as Visa. Recently, in 2008 Visa went public in a large IPO. After going public, its operations spread widely across the globe.
Currently, Visa operates in more than 200 countries and territories, providing services and products accessible through any device.
Visa was recently ranked as one of the most valuable companies globally. The company is really strong financially as it has a huge customer base. Close to 15,100 financial institutions use services and products provided by Visa.
Moreover, there are currently 3.6 billion Visa cards in use globally. Due to such high demand in the market, Visa managed to generate revenue of $24.1 billion in 2021. Although Visa operates in every part of the world still, the number of employees of Visa is only 21,500 due to its nature of operations.
Now that we have given you insight into Visa, let's discuss what SWOT analysis is so that we can finally carry out Visa's SWOT analysis.
A SWOT template lets us examine the internal and external factors that affect the operations of a business by highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. It also sheds light on the opportunities and threats that a company faces.
Now that you've gained some understanding of the SWOT analysis, let's proceed to carry out Visa's SWOT analysis.
Strengths of VISA
Strengths are the factors that push a company to achieve its desired goals and beat all the competitors in the market. If a company possesses more strengths than weaknesses, it succeeds.
After looking at the worldwide operations of Visa, we know that it would possess many strengths that enabled it to grow this much. So, in this section, let's look at some of the strengths that Visa possesses.
Global Presence
A global presence is considered a strength for any brand since it increases the customer base, leading to higher revenue. Moreover, spreading operations worldwide expands the size of the company. This makes a company's position firm in the market.
Visa is among those very few companies that operate in almost every country. This is one of the greatest strengths of Visa since it doesn't let Visa rely on any one country for revenue generation.
Moreover, such a strong global presence has enormously increased Visa's customer base. Do you know that almost half of the world's population currently owns a Visa card? That's crazy!
Safe Data Centers
Data is considered very sacred these days, and data breaches are becoming unforgivable as people become more aware of the importance of data. Therefore, to ensure their operations continue smoothly, it is essential for data handling companies to have safe data centers.
One of the top financial service providers, Visa, has ensured that it has safe data centers. However, since Visa is dealing with the data of billions of people, it can't afford to take any risks.
Visa's data centers are protected from natural disasters, criminal attacks, and terrorism. It can handle 30,000 simultaneous transactions and 100 billion computations per second.
Strong Marketing
No matter how big a brand is, it always requires strong marketing to stay relevant in the market. For example, big brands choose to sponsor sports events since a lot of people watch them.
Visa sponsors several events throughout the year. These include Visa Newsroom, Paralympics, FIFA, and the Olympics, as well as other events on a global level. Sponsoring such significant sports events helps Visa to promote itself at such huge events.
Weaknesses of VISA
Weaknesses are the drawbacks present in a company. No matter how many strengths a company possesses, there will always be some weaknesses present in the company. Now, we will look at the weaknesses that Visa possesses.
Risky Operations
Different companies carry out different types of operations. However, any company that carries out risky operations can be liable for any mishap in the future.
Since Visa deals with non-tangible financial transactions, the risks related to fraud and hacking are very high. This makes customers less secure, and they hesitate to use the service provided by Visa.
High Operating Expense
Businesses always look forward to cutting their operating expenses to maximize their profits. High operating costs can result in low profits, creating future cash flow problems.
As one of the leading financial service providers, Visa has to spend on R&D and innovation to find ways to improve the user experience. Besides, other costs such as marketing and salary expenses increase Visa's operational costs.
Dependency on Clients
Getting dependent on someone for business is considered a significant weakness in business. However, most of the companies that are involved in business-to-business sales are very much dependent on their clients.
The reason for this dependence is clear because limited clients exist in the market, and companies selling to businesses have to rely on those limited businesses that are present in the market.
Similarly, Visa is involved in business-to-business sales as it doesn't give away cards directly to consumers. Since Visa needs other financial institutions to buy its services, it is highly dependent on the limited financial institutions in the market.
Opportunities for VISA
Every company gets the opportunity to get big. However, only a few can assess these opportunities timely and avail them. Visa is currently one of the top companies that provide financial services. However, more opportunities lie for the company to grow.
In this section, we will analyze the opportunities available for Visa to improve and grow.
Using Innovation
Latest technological developments allow all businesses to improve their operations and achieve growth. Similarly, Visa has an opportunity to use innovation in its favor and dominate the market.
Visa can innovate its products and services to make them more facilitating for the users. For example, Visa can introduce a convenient app that will help you to manage your spending efficiently. Such innovative products will attract more financial institutions to get linked with Visa.
Increasing Number of Banks
Any business gets happy when its market or the number of potential clients increases because this increase can possibly translate into an increase in the company's revenue.
Over the years, it can be observed that the number of bank account holders has increased. According to the stats, 76% of adults have a bank account. As the number of account holders has increased, the number of Banks has also increased. Currently, 44,000 banks are operating across the globe.
This increase in the number of banks poses an opportunity for Visa to attract these banks to take services and products of Visa. As a result, this will help the company grow and increase its revenue.
Increase In the Internet Usage
As technological development is taking place and awareness is increasing, internet consumption is increasing daily. Currently, more than 5 billion people are consuming the internet. Such high internet consumption has paved the way for e-commerce.
People are now shifting from physical markets to e-commerce platforms. These online shopping stores are making people use credit and debit cards since payment through cash is impossible online. Online shopping is beneficial for Visa since it is increasing its customer base.
Threats for Visa
Every business faces different kinds of threats from the external environment. Since we have discussed the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities present for Visa, we will now discuss some of the threats faced by Visa from external sources.
Global Recession
Recessions always damage businesses as they force people to lower their living standards. Unemployment also increases during a recession, due to which consumption drops. After COVID-19 and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, economists believe a recession is near.
In case of a global recession, Visa can experience losses as people may pull out money from banks, and the number of transactions taking place would decrease.
Russia-Ukraine War
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has affected businesses all over the globe directly and indirectly. Many companies were forced to suspend their operations for political reasons, damaging them financially.
Visa also suspended its operations in Russia after the war was declared. However, Visa is one of the companies that used to generate a significant share of its revenue from Russia. After suspending its operations in Russia, Visa experienced a loss of $1.6 billion since it generated around 4% of its revenue from Russia.
With each passing day, Visa is experiencing financial losses. Such a revenue deficit may cause future cash flow problems for Visa.
High Competition
Similar to any company, Visa also feels threatened by its competitors since they can snatch Visa's market share by introducing better products and services.
Visa has to deal with tough competitors like Mastercard and Paypal to maintain its position in the market. To survive in the market, Visa must work on its unique selling points, or it might be pushed out of the market soon.
VISA SWOT Analysis: Final Word
Finally, we are done with our SWOT analysis, so let's quickly recall what we have done in this article. So, we started by discussing the history of Visa, how it was established and how it evolved over the years.
After that, we discussed the relevance of Visa in the current financial service industry. We also shed light on the revenue of Visa and how many employees work for the company.
Then, we carried out Visa's SWOT analysis which made us aware of the strengths and weaknesses that Visa possesses. It further highlighted the opportunities available and the threats faced by Visa.
In this article, we presented the SWOT analysis findings in the form of an essay. However, these findings can also be displayed through a SWOT matrix or a SWOT table. In this article, we not only shed light on the operations of Visa but also taught you how to conduct a SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is a vital business tool used for business analysis. Here are some more examples of SWOT analysis that will help you understand how this analysis works.
