Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.Steve Williams, General Counsel of Unilever PIc, has two key decisions to make prior to commencing construction on the redevelopment of Unilever House - the company's London corporate headquarters. The purpose of the redevelopment is to reinvigorate the corporate culture by making the company's workspace more collaborative, transparent, and efficient. Steve has to decide how to finance the project and whether the current design proposed by his architects achieves the project's goals.
Authors :: A. Eugene Kohn, Arthur I Segel, Andrew Terris
Swot Analysis of "Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House" written by A. Eugene Kohn, Arthur I Segel, Andrew Terris includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Unilever Redevelopment facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Unilever Redevelopment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Unilever Redevelopment 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Unilever Redevelopment
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 Unilever Redevelopment
Strengths Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Unilever Redevelopment in Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Unilever Redevelopment in the sector have low bargaining power. Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Unilever Redevelopment to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Unilever Redevelopment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Unilever Redevelopment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Unilever Redevelopment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Unilever Redevelopment in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Unilever Redevelopment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Unilever Redevelopment is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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.
Learning organization
- Unilever Redevelopment 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 Unilever Redevelopment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Unilever Redevelopment is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Unilever Redevelopment is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Unilever Redevelopment 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 A. Eugene Kohn, Arthur I Segel, Andrew Terris 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Weaknesses Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House, is just above the industry average. Unilever Redevelopment needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Unilever Redevelopment 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Unilever Redevelopment 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 Unilever Redevelopment 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 - Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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 Unilever Redevelopment has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Unilever Redevelopment products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Unilever Redevelopment needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Unilever Redevelopment is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Unilever Redevelopment, firm in the HBR case study Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House | 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Unilever Redevelopment has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Unilever Redevelopment to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House case study. Unilever Redevelopment can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Unilever Redevelopment to increase its market reach. Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Unilever Redevelopment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Unilever Redevelopment 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 Unilever Redevelopment can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Unilever Redevelopment 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.
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. Unilever Redevelopment can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Unilever Redevelopment can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Unilever Redevelopment 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Unilever Redevelopment to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Unilever Redevelopment 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.
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 Unilever Redevelopment in the consumer business. Now Unilever Redevelopment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Unilever Redevelopment 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, Unilever Redevelopment 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, Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House, 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 Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Unilever Redevelopment 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. Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Threats Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Unilever Redevelopment with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House, Unilever Redevelopment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
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. Unilever Redevelopment can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Unilever Redevelopment 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Unilever Redevelopment 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Unilever Redevelopment 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. Unilever Redevelopment can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
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 Unilever Redevelopment in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Unilever Redevelopment 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.
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 Unilever Redevelopment business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Unilever Redevelopment 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Unilever Redevelopment is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Unilever Redevelopment
– 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 Unilever Redevelopment.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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 Back to the Future: Redeveloping Unilever House 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 Unilever Redevelopment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
