Case Study Description of LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies
Set in 2003, this case presents the relative merits and demerits of direct and indirect methods of international property investment from the perspective of an Australian property company, LandLease (Asia) Property Ltd. (LL). It wished to gain exposure to the Hong Kong property sector and had the option of investing directly by acquiring real property assets or indirectly by acquiring interests in investment vehicles whose underlying investment performance was linked to the property sectors. LL was particularly interested in creating an investment portfolio and listing it as a REIT in Hong Kong. Compares and contrasts the most common forms and strategies of real estate investment. The relative attractiveness of direct and indirect international property investments will depend on the requirements, objectives, and financial strength of the investors. Despite differences in the underlying asset base and quality, direct and indirect investments are not mutually exclusive.
Swot Analysis of "LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies" written by Frederik Pretorius, Mary Ho includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Property Landlease facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Property Landlease, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Property Landlease 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 LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Property Landlease
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 Property Landlease
Strengths LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Property Landlease in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Property Landlease has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Property Landlease 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Property Landlease 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.
Training and development
– Property Landlease has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Property Landlease to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Property Landlease to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Property Landlease is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Property Landlease is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Property Landlease in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Property Landlease 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 LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Property Landlease is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Property Landlease 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 Frederik Pretorius, Mary Ho 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Property Landlease is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Property Landlease is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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.
Learning organization
- Property Landlease 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 Property Landlease is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Property Landlease products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Property Landlease needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Property Landlease 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Property Landlease, firm in the HBR case study LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies, 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Property Landlease 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Property Landlease 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Property Landlease 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 - LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies, it seems that the employees of Property Landlease 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies, is just above the industry average. Property Landlease 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Frederik Pretorius, Mary Ho suggests that, Property Landlease 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Property Landlease is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Property Landlease needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Property Landlease to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies | 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 LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies are -
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. Property Landlease can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Property Landlease 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Property Landlease is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Property Landlease has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Property Landlease to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies case study. Property Landlease can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Property Landlease can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Property Landlease can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Property Landlease 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.
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. Property Landlease 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. Property Landlease 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Property Landlease can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Property Landlease operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Property Landlease 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Property Landlease to increase its market reach. Property Landlease 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Property Landlease 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Property Landlease 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.
Threats LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies are -
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 Property Landlease business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Property Landlease needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Property Landlease can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Property Landlease 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 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
– Property Landlease 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Property Landlease 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Property Landlease has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Property Landlease 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 wage structure of Property Landlease
– 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 Property Landlease.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Property Landlease 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.
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 Property Landlease in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Property Landlease.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies, Property Landlease 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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 LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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 LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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 LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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 LandLease (Asia) Property Limited: Redefining Real Estate Investment Strategies 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 Property Landlease needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
