Swot Analysis of "Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C)" written by Nabil N. El-Hage includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Simon's Taubman facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Mergers & acquisitions and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Simon's Taubman, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Simon's Taubman 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Simon's Taubman
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Simon's Taubman
Strengths Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Simon's Taubman in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Simon's Taubman in the sector have low bargaining power. Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Simon's Taubman to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Simon's Taubman 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 Simon's Taubman 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Simon's Taubman is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Simon's Taubman
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Simon's Taubman does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Simon's Taubman has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Simon's Taubman to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Simon's Taubman has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Simon's Taubman has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Simon's Taubman 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Simon's Taubman to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Simon's Taubman to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Simon's Taubman has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Simon's Taubman is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Simon's Taubman is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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.
Weaknesses Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) HBR case study mentions - Simon's Taubman 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Simon's Taubman products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Simon's Taubman needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Simon's Taubman 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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 Simon's Taubman has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Simon's Taubman is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Simon's Taubman needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Simon's Taubman to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Simon's Taubman has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C), it seems that the employees of Simon's Taubman 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Simon's Taubman 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 - Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Simon's Taubman 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Simon's Taubman is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Simon's Taubman has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Simon's Taubman 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.
Opportunities Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) | 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Simon's Taubman to increase its market reach. Simon's Taubman 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Simon's Taubman can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Simon's Taubman 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 Simon's Taubman to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Simon's Taubman 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Simon's Taubman can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Simon's Taubman 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Simon's Taubman can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Simon's Taubman operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Simon's Taubman can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Developing new processes and practices
– Simon's Taubman can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Simon's Taubman 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Simon's Taubman has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Simon's Taubman to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Simon's Taubman in the consumer business. Now Simon's Taubman can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Simon's Taubman 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, Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Simon's Taubman 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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Simon's Taubman.
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. Simon's Taubman 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 Simon's Taubman 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 the industry and other sectors.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Simon's Taubman can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Simon's Taubman is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Simon's Taubman in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Simon's Taubman has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Simon's Taubman needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Simon's Taubman 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C), Simon's Taubman may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
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. Simon's Taubman needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Simon's Taubman in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) 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 Simon's Taubman needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
