Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living
Antara Senior Living, a first-of-its-kind senior living community targeted at people in their mid-fifties and older, had been planned as a community, grounded in the principles of service and hospitality, and built specifically to ensure that its residents gained the maximum benefit from their environment. Built on a unique design philosophy that encouraged the highest quality of living, it aimed to provide for the care of the resident's physical health as well as their mind and spirit. The case, set in January 2017, describes the challenges facing Tara Vachani, the young CEO of Antara, as she watches her dream project take form and the project delivery date draws closer. Like any other startup, Antara was faced with the challenges of working in a new category with a unique product offering. Would Antara be able to establish a business model that would deliver on its commitments on service excellence? What should their operating strategy be? Should Antara look at any possible innovative service extensions that could be offered to seniors as a market at large? It was faced with the choice of either protecting its long-term vision of delivering a high-quality senior living offering or changing aspects of the product to bring it closer to traditional real estate offerings, thereby increasing the sales velocity and financial metrics of the business in the short term.
Swot Analysis of "Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living" written by Manpreet Hora, Geetika Shah includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Antara Living facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy, Supply chain and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Antara Living, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Antara Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Antara Living
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Antara Living
Strengths Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Antara Living in Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Antara Living in the sector have low bargaining power. Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Antara Living to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Antara Living has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Antara Living 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 Antara Living 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Antara Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Antara Living is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Antara Living 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 Manpreet Hora, Geetika Shah 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
– Antara Living has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Antara Living to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Antara Living is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Antara Living has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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 Strategy & Execution industry
– Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Antara Living to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Antara Living to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Antara Living is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Antara Living 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.
Weaknesses Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Antara Living is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Antara Living needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Antara Living to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Antara Living supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Antara Living vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Antara Living 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living HBR case study mentions - Antara Living 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Antara Living 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Antara Living 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 - Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Antara Living products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Antara Living needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living, it seems that the employees of Antara Living 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Antara Living is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living, in the dynamic environment Antara Living has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Antara Living has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Antara Living 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.
Opportunities Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living | 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Antara Living can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Antara Living 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, Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Antara Living 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Antara Living 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 Antara Living 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Antara Living 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 Antara Living to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Antara Living 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.
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 Antara Living in the consumer business. Now Antara Living can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Antara Living 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 Antara Living to increase its market reach. Antara Living 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Antara Living 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Antara Living can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Antara Living operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Antara Living can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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.
Threats Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living are -
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 Antara Living.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Antara Living is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Antara Living 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 Antara Living business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Antara Living 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.
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 Antara Living in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living, Antara Living may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Antara Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Antara Living in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Antara Living has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Antara Living needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Antara Living 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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 Antara: Building Experiences in Senior Living 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 Antara Living needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
