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 - – increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, 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 -
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.
Analytics focus
– Simon's Taubman 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 Nabil N. El-Hage 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Simon's Taubman is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Simon's Taubman 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 Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
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 -
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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Simon's Taubman 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.
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 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 Simon's Taubman supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Simon's Taubman vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Simon's Taubman is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Nabil N. El-Hage suggests that, Simon's Taubman is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Simon's Taubman 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.
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 -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Simon's Taubman is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Simon's Hostile Tender for Taubman (C) case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Simon's Taubman 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. Simon's Taubman 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Simon's Taubman can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Simon's Taubman in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Simon's Taubman to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Simon's Taubman 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.
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.
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 -
Increasing wage structure of Simon's Taubman
– 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 Simon's Taubman.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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) .
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.
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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Simon's Taubman needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Simon's Taubman can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
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.