Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version
A couple has to decide whether to continue renting a townhouse or buy the one next door. Allows for a discussion of net present value, internal rate of return, and the costs and benefits of homeownership.
Swot Analysis of "Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version" written by David S. Scharfstein, Andre F. Perold includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Stedman Homeownership facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Stedman Homeownership, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Stedman Homeownership
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 Stedman Homeownership
Strengths Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Stedman Homeownership in Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Stedman Homeownership in the sector have low bargaining power. Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Stedman Homeownership to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Stedman Homeownership is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Stedman Homeownership in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Stedman Homeownership has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Stedman Homeownership to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Stedman Homeownership to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Stedman Homeownership
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Stedman Homeownership does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Stedman Homeownership is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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
– Stedman Homeownership 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 David S. Scharfstein, Andre F. Perold 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.
High brand equity
– Stedman Homeownership has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Stedman Homeownership to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Stedman Homeownership 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 - Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Stedman Homeownership products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Stedman Homeownership needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Stedman Homeownership 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Stedman Homeownership is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Stedman Homeownership is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Stedman Homeownership needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Stedman Homeownership to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version HBR case study mentions - Stedman Homeownership 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version, it seems that the employees of Stedman Homeownership 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version, in the dynamic environment Stedman Homeownership has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Stedman Homeownership has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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 Stedman Homeownership has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Stedman Homeownership 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Stedman Homeownership 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.
Opportunities Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version | 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Stedman Homeownership 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Stedman Homeownership can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Homeownership to increase its market reach. Stedman Homeownership 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Stedman Homeownership 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
– Stedman Homeownership 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Stedman Homeownership can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Stedman Homeownership operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
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 Stedman Homeownership in the consumer business. Now Stedman Homeownership can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Homeownership to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Stedman Homeownership 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, Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Stedman Homeownership 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Stedman Homeownership to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Stedman Homeownership 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.
Threats Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version, Stedman Homeownership 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Stedman Homeownership 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Stedman Homeownership 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Stedman Homeownership with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Stedman Homeownership is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Stedman Homeownership can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version .
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.
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 Stedman Homeownership.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Stedman Homeownership has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Stedman Homeownership 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.
Environmental challenges
– Stedman Homeownership 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. Stedman Homeownership can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
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. Stedman Homeownership 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 Stedman Homeownership 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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 Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?, Spanish Version 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 Stedman Homeownership needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
