Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn
Jamestown is contemplating how to best lease a portion of their new development along the Brooklyn waterfront, Industry City. The 6 million square foot, mixed-use development is meant to accommodate Brooklyn's growing innovation, creative, and "maker" communities. Jamestown is intrigued by the recently revived trend of "shared office space," championed by WeWork and originated by well-known players like Regus. The case is intended to introduce the reader to the shared office market, including the similarities and differences from traditional office space, and explore the underlying trends driving this change, as well as the risks to the business model. Jamestown must weigh the pros and cons of their different leasing strategies, including economic, operational, and reputational, and must decide whether or not to lease the space to a traditional tenant, lease the space to a third-party shared office operator (e.g., WeWork or Regus), or develop their own shared office offering.
Authors :: Arthur I Segel, Andrew Baum, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Charles F Wu
Swot Analysis of "Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn" written by Arthur I Segel, Andrew Baum, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Charles F Wu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Jamestown Office facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Technology and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn casestudy better are - – technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jamestown Office, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jamestown Office 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 Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jamestown Office
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 Jamestown Office
Strengths Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jamestown Office in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Jamestown Office has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jamestown Office is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jamestown Office is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jamestown Office 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Jamestown Office is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Jamestown Office 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 Arthur I Segel, Andrew Baum, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Charles F Wu 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jamestown Office 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.
Learning organization
- Jamestown Office 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 Jamestown Office is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Jamestown Office has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jamestown Office to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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.
Organizational Resilience of Jamestown Office
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Jamestown Office does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jamestown Office to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jamestown Office to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jamestown Office 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jamestown Office 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Arthur I Segel, Andrew Baum, Nori Gerardo Lietz, Charles F Wu suggests that, Jamestown Office 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jamestown Office products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jamestown Office needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn, in the dynamic environment Jamestown Office has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jamestown Office has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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 Jamestown Office 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Jamestown Office, firm in the HBR case study Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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 Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jamestown Office is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn, it seems that the employees of Jamestown Office 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn HBR case study mentions - Jamestown Office 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Opportunities Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn | 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 Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn are -
Loyalty marketing
– Jamestown Office 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Jamestown Office 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. Jamestown Office 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.
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. Jamestown Office can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jamestown Office to increase its market reach. Jamestown Office 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.
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 Jamestown Office in the consumer business. Now Jamestown Office can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jamestown Office 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jamestown Office 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jamestown Office has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Jamestown Office to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn case study. Jamestown Office can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jamestown Office 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
– Jamestown Office 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jamestown Office is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jamestown Office can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jamestown Office operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jamestown Office can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jamestown Office 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.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Jamestown Office needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jamestown Office 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Jamestown Office
– 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 Jamestown Office.
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. Jamestown Office can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jamestown Office 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.
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. Jamestown Office 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jamestown Office 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.
Environmental challenges
– Jamestown Office 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. Jamestown Office can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
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 Jamestown Office.
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 Jamestown Office in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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 Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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 Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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 Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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 Reworking Office Space: Industry City, Brooklyn 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 Jamestown Office needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
