Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development
Louise Dejan was a successful real estate developer operating throughout northeast England. The city council of her hometown of Newcastle faced a problem common to many areas: how to encourage private investment into less attractive areas. In August 2012, Newcastle's East Pilgrim Street neighborhood remained an eyesore, despite its great location between the city's Central Station and city hall. It was a natural place for Dejan to build a typical urban office building over street-level retail building. On a particularly attractive site sat an asbestos-contaminated building, which was a former home to the Bank of England. The costs of remediation had kept developers like Dejan away for many years. To encourage redevelopment, the Newcastle City Council had recently designated the East Pilgrim Street neighborhood an Accelerated Development Zone (ADZ). This gave Dejan access to Tax Increment Financing (TIF), a method by which public funds could be spent to encourage private sector redevelopment of designated parcels of land. After studying the details of TIF and the financial projections of a potential new development, Dejan had to decide whether she should be the first to redevelop property in this well-located but seemingly forgotten neighborhood.
Swot Analysis of "Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development" written by Craig Furfine includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dejan Newcastle facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Organizational structure and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dejan Newcastle, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dejan Newcastle 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dejan Newcastle
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 Dejan Newcastle
Strengths Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dejan Newcastle in Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dejan Newcastle has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dejan Newcastle 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dejan Newcastle 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dejan Newcastle 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dejan Newcastle is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Dejan Newcastle is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dejan Newcastle in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dejan Newcastle digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dejan Newcastle has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dejan Newcastle 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dejan Newcastle 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.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Dejan Newcastle 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 Dejan Newcastle in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Dejan Newcastle is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Dejan Newcastle 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 Dejan Newcastle is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Dejan Newcastle, firm in the HBR case study Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Dejan Newcastle is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Dejan Newcastle needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Dejan Newcastle to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dejan Newcastle is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dejan Newcastle 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development HBR case study mentions - Dejan Newcastle takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dejan Newcastle is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Dejan Newcastle 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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 Dejan Newcastle 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Dejan Newcastle 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dejan Newcastle 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development, it seems that the employees of Dejan Newcastle 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.
Opportunities Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development | 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development are -
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. Dejan Newcastle can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Dejan Newcastle can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dejan Newcastle 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dejan Newcastle 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dejan Newcastle to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dejan Newcastle to increase its market reach. Dejan Newcastle 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
– Dejan Newcastle 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dejan Newcastle 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 Dejan Newcastle to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Dejan Newcastle can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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, Dejan Newcastle 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Dejan Newcastle can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dejan Newcastle has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Dejan Newcastle to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development case study. Dejan Newcastle can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dejan Newcastle 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dejan Newcastle can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development are -
Regulatory challenges
– Dejan Newcastle 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.
Increasing wage structure of Dejan Newcastle
– 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 Dejan Newcastle.
Environmental challenges
– Dejan Newcastle 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. Dejan Newcastle can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
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.
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 Dejan Newcastle in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Dejan Newcastle 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, Dejan Newcastle 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dejan Newcastle high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dejan Newcastle has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dejan Newcastle 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 Dejan Newcastle.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dejan Newcastle 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.
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. Dejan Newcastle 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dejan Newcastle 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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 Redeveloping Newcastle: Public Incentives to Spur Commercial Development 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 Dejan Newcastle needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.