BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information
This case includes supplements.Bradford, an old New England industrial city, is experiencing an economic boom. The city has recently adopted a 'linkage agreement' policy, requiring developers to make once-off payments to the city to offset infrastructure and housing costs. Curry Corporation ('Curry') is the first developer to propose a major project under the new administration. After meeting with all the appropriate municipal agencies and citizen groups, the only major issue left unresolved in the proposed project is the appropriate size of the linkage payment that Curry should make to the city. This is a role play case.
Swot Analysis of "BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information" written by Program on Negotiation includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Curry City facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Government, Negotiations and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Curry City, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Curry City 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 BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Curry City
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Curry City
Strengths BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Curry City in BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Curry City digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Curry City 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Curry City to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Curry City to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Curry City has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Curry City to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Curry City is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Curry City has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Curry City 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.
Analytics focus
– Curry City 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 industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Program on Negotiation can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Curry City has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Strong track record of project management
– Curry City is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Curry City 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.
Organizational Resilience of Curry City
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Curry City does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information, it seems that the employees of Curry City 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Curry City has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information, is just above the industry average. Curry City needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. 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 segment, Curry City 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
Curry City has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Curry City has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information HBR case study mentions - Curry City takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Curry City is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Curry City has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Curry City supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Curry City vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Curry City to increase its market reach. Curry City will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
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. Curry City can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Curry City can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Curry City 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.
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 Curry City 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Curry City can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Curry City 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. Curry City 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Curry City in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Curry City 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Curry City can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Curry City 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Curry City can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Curry City 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Threats BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Curry City 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Curry City has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Curry City needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Curry City is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Curry City 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information, Curry City may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Curry City with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Curry City in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Curry City can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Curry City 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 Curry City in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Curry City
– 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 Curry City.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Curry City can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information 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 the case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information 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 the Harvard case study BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information 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 BRADFORD DEVELOPMENT - General Information is 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 Curry City needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
