Building Cities: A Technical Note SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Building Cities: A Technical Note
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.World population growth and increasing urbanization will require new cities in the future around the world. This technical note attempts to systematize the key design decisions that developers and policy makers alike must make to be able to proceed.
Swot Analysis of "Building Cities: A Technical Note" written by Arthur I Segel, Oliver O. Hartleben includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cities Color.world facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Building Cities: A Technical Note case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Policy and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Building Cities: A Technical Note casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Building Cities: A Technical Note
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Building Cities: A Technical Note case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cities Color.world, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cities Color.world 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Building Cities: A Technical Note case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cities Color.world
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 Cities Color.world
Strengths Building Cities: A Technical Note | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cities Color.world in Building Cities: A Technical Note Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cities Color.world is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Building Cities: A Technical Note are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Cities Color.world is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Building Cities: A Technical Note Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cities Color.world 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Building Cities: A Technical Note 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Building Cities: A Technical Note firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cities Color.world to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cities Color.world to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cities Color.world digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cities Color.world 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.
Training and development
– Cities Color.world has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Building Cities: A Technical Note 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
– Cities Color.world is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Building Cities: A Technical Note 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
- Cities Color.world 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 Cities Color.world is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Building Cities: A Technical Note Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cities Color.world in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Cities Color.world is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Cities Color.world in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Cities Color.world has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cities Color.world to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Building Cities: A Technical Note | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Building Cities: A Technical Note are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Building Cities: A Technical Note HBR case study mentions - Cities Color.world 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cities Color.world 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 Cities Color.world 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Building Cities: A Technical Note 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 Cities Color.world has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Building Cities: A Technical Note, is just above the industry average. Cities Color.world 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Building Cities: A Technical Note, in the dynamic environment Cities Color.world has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cities Color.world has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cities Color.world 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 - Building Cities: A Technical Note should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Arthur I Segel, Oliver O. Hartleben suggests that, Cities Color.world 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Building Cities: A Technical Note, it seems that the employees of Cities Color.world 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cities Color.world is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Building Cities: A Technical Note, 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note | 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cities Color.world 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cities Color.world in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Cities Color.world 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cities Color.world to increase its market reach. Cities Color.world 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.
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. Cities Color.world 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. Cities Color.world 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cities Color.world 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.
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 Cities Color.world in the consumer business. Now Cities Color.world can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cities Color.world 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cities Color.world to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Cities Color.world can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Building Cities: A Technical Note 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cities Color.world 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, Building Cities: A Technical Note, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cities Color.world can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cities Color.world operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cities Color.world 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 Cities Color.world to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cities Color.world can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Building Cities: A Technical Note External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Building Cities: A Technical Note are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Building Cities: A Technical Note, Cities Color.world 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 .
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. Cities Color.world needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cities Color.world is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cities Color.world 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.
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 Cities Color.world in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline 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 Cities Color.world business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Cities Color.world 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cities Color.world has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cities Color.world needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cities Color.world with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Cities Color.world 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cities Color.world 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.
Increasing wage structure of Cities Color.world
– 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 Cities Color.world.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Building Cities: A Technical Note 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note 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 Building Cities: A Technical Note 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 Cities Color.world needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
