The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism
For many years, renowned urbanist Richard Florida has married his long-held interest in urban economic development with the insights of urban sociologists on the corrosive effects of concentrated poverty, mapping the deep new divides that isolate the classes and tracing the growth of economic disadvantage in the suburbs. In this excerpt from his latest book, he presents some of his key findings, showing that 'urbanism for all' is contingent upon seven principles-including: building more affordable rental housing; investing in infrastructure; and making 'clustering' work for us.
Swot Analysis of "The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism" written by Richard Florida includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Urbanism Urban facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economy, Policy and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Urbanism Urban, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Urbanism Urban 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Urbanism Urban
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Urbanism Urban
Strengths The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Urbanism Urban in The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Urbanism Urban 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 Richard Florida 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Urbanism Urban in the sector have low bargaining power. The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Urbanism Urban to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Urbanism Urban to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Urbanism Urban to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Urbanism Urban is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Urbanism Urban digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Urbanism Urban 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Urbanism Urban is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Urbanism Urban is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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.
Training and development
– Urbanism Urban has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Urbanism Urban 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Urbanism Urban is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Urbanism Urban 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism are -
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 Urbanism Urban supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Urbanism Urban vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Urbanism Urban 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Urbanism Urban products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Urbanism Urban needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Richard Florida suggests that, Urbanism Urban 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Urbanism Urban 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Urbanism Urban is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism, it seems that the employees of Urbanism Urban 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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 Urbanism Urban has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Urbanism Urban 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Urbanism Urban 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.
Opportunities The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism | 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Urbanism Urban has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Urbanism Urban to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism case study. Urbanism Urban can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Urbanism Urban 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Urbanism Urban can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Urbanism Urban 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Urbanism Urban 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 Global Business segment.
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. Urbanism Urban can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Urbanism Urban 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Urbanism Urban 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, The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Urbanism Urban 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. Urbanism Urban 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Urbanism Urban 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 Urbanism Urban to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Urbanism Urban has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Urbanism Urban 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Urbanism Urban to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Urbanism Urban can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism are -
Environmental challenges
– Urbanism Urban 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. Urbanism Urban can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Urbanism Urban can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Urbanism Urban
– 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 Urbanism Urban.
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 Urbanism Urban.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism, Urbanism Urban may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Urbanism Urban 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Urbanism Urban 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 Global Business industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Urbanism Urban is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Urbanism Urban 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Urbanism Urban with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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 Urbanism Urban business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Urbanism Urban 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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 The New Urban Crisis: Putting an End to Winner-Takes-All Urbanism 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 Urbanism Urban needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.