Fannie Mae: Public or Private? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Fannie Mae: Public or Private?
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan established the President's Commission on Privatization to identify federal government functions that could be shifted to the private sector. One agency that the Commission considered was the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae was a Depression-era creation that was charged with establishing a secondary market for home loans. By purchasing qualifying residential mortgages from individual home loan issuers, Fannie Mae provided these institutions with funds for the continued issuance of mortgages, thereby promoting the government's goal of increased homeownership. Although lawmakers had already partially privatized Fannie Mae in 1954 and again in 1968, the agency in 1987 still retained close links to the federal government, including an emergency line of credit from the U.S. Treasury. After its deliberations, the President's Commission recommended Fannie Mae be restructured into a fully private firm. Now it was up to Congress and the President to decide whether to accept and implement the Commission's findings.
Swot Analysis of "Fannie Mae: Public or Private?" written by David A. Moss, Cole Bolton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Fannie Mae facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Fannie Mae: Public or Private? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial markets, Government, Reorganization, Social enterprise and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Fannie Mae: Public or Private? casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fannie Mae: Public or Private?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Fannie Mae: Public or Private? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fannie Mae, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fannie Mae 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Fannie Mae: Public or Private? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fannie Mae
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 Fannie Mae
Strengths Fannie Mae: Public or Private? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fannie Mae in Fannie Mae: Public or Private? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Fannie Mae: Public or Private? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fannie Mae to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fannie Mae to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fannie Mae has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fannie Mae 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.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Fannie Mae 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 Fannie Mae in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Fannie Mae is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fannie Mae in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fannie Mae digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fannie Mae 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Fannie Mae is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Fannie Mae: Public or Private? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fannie Mae in the sector have low bargaining power. Fannie Mae: Public or Private? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fannie Mae to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fannie Mae is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Fannie Mae: Public or Private? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fannie Mae 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Fannie Mae
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Fannie Mae does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Fannie Mae: Public or Private? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fannie Mae: Public or Private? are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Fannie Mae: Public or Private?, it seems that the employees of Fannie Mae 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Fannie Mae products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fannie Mae needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Fannie Mae: Public or Private?, is just above the industry average. Fannie Mae 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fannie Mae is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Fannie Mae 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fannie Mae 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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 Fannie Mae 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fannie Mae has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Fannie Mae even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Fannie Mae: Public or Private?, in the dynamic environment Fannie Mae has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fannie Mae has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fannie Mae: Public or Private? HBR case study mentions - Fannie Mae 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 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 Fannie Mae supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Fannie Mae: Public or Private?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Fannie Mae vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Fannie Mae: Public or Private? | 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fannie Mae can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fannie Mae operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fannie Mae 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, Fannie Mae: Public or Private?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Fannie Mae 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fannie Mae 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fannie Mae 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fannie Mae 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fannie Mae to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Fannie Mae 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fannie Mae has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Fannie Mae to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Fannie Mae: Public or Private? case study. Fannie Mae can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Fannie Mae can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Fannie Mae can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Fannie Mae 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fannie Mae to increase its market reach. Fannie Mae 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fannie Mae 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.
Threats Fannie Mae: Public or Private? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Fannie Mae: Public or Private? are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fannie Mae 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? .
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. Fannie Mae 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fannie Mae is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fannie Mae has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fannie Mae 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.
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.
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 Fannie Mae in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fannie Mae 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fannie Mae 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Fannie Mae with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private?, Fannie Mae 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Fannie Mae 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. Fannie Mae can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fannie Mae 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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 Fannie Mae: Public or Private? 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 Fannie Mae needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
