GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making
GreenWood Resources Inc. was founded in 1998 by Jeff Nuss, a bio-resources engineer. It was a Portland, Oregon, USA-based investment and asset management company with a worldwide focus on high-yield and fast-growing tree farms. In spite of its global vision, value proposition and pursuit of environmental stewardship and social responsibility, GreenWood had struggled for almost 10 years to obtain significant investment funds until 2007-2008. Through persistent effort, GreenWood built the key elements (people, resources and business networks) for a successful venture despite the serious early financial constraints. GreenWood entered and navigated the Chinese market, deciding to establish its China operation with only a fraction of the funds it needed. Jeff seized an opportunity to organize a US$175 million private equity fund through his connections with the timber investment community to acquire a large poplar plantation in Oregon. The expanded scale and personnel resulting from the acquisition enabled GreenWood to become a visible player in the tree plantation industry and facilitated its securing an additional commitment of US$200 million of capital for use in the Chinese market. Notwithstanding the availability of the capital and its cumulative knowledge of the Chinese market, the investment screening and negotiation process in China turned out to be complex due to the differences in business approaches and culturally embedded mindsets. In June 2010, Jeff and his team were weighing the pros and cons of two potential projects. They felt that GreenWood needed to proceed carefully to ensure its criteria of sustainable business (in terms of economic performance, social responsibility and environmental stewardship) were met in China but also realized the company should show some progress to its major investor in China, Oriental Timber Fund Limited. Jeff and his senior management team needed to decide whether they should recommend investing in one of the two projects.
Swot Analysis of "GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making" written by Lei Li, Howard Feldman, Alan Eisner includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Greenwood Jeff facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social responsibility, Sustainability and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Greenwood Jeff, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Greenwood Jeff 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Greenwood Jeff
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Greenwood Jeff
Strengths GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Greenwood Jeff in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Greenwood Jeff 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 Greenwood Jeff is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Greenwood Jeff is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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 Greenwood Jeff in the sector have low bargaining power. GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Greenwood Jeff to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Greenwood Jeff has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Greenwood Jeff 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Greenwood Jeff is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Greenwood Jeff is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Greenwood Jeff
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Greenwood Jeff does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Greenwood Jeff 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 Greenwood Jeff in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Greenwood Jeff in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Greenwood Jeff has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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.
High brand equity
– Greenwood Jeff has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Greenwood Jeff to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making HBR case study mentions - Greenwood Jeff 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Greenwood Jeff 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making, in the dynamic environment Greenwood Jeff has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Greenwood Jeff has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Lei Li, Howard Feldman, Alan Eisner suggests that, Greenwood Jeff 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Greenwood Jeff is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Greenwood Jeff has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making, is just above the industry average. Greenwood Jeff 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.
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 Greenwood Jeff supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Greenwood Jeff vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Greenwood Jeff 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Greenwood Jeff, firm in the HBR case study GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Greenwood Jeff 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.
Opportunities GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making | 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Greenwood Jeff can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Greenwood Jeff 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Greenwood Jeff to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Greenwood Jeff 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, Greenwood Jeff 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, GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making, 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 Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Greenwood Jeff 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. Greenwood Jeff 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Greenwood Jeff to increase its market reach. Greenwood Jeff 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Greenwood Jeff 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 Global Business segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Greenwood Jeff 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 Greenwood Jeff to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Greenwood Jeff can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Greenwood Jeff has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Greenwood Jeff to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making case study. Greenwood Jeff can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Greenwood Jeff can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Greenwood Jeff operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Greenwood Jeff 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.
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 Greenwood Jeff 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.
Threats GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Greenwood Jeff 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Greenwood Jeff 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Greenwood Jeff 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Greenwood Jeff can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Greenwood Jeff in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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 Greenwood Jeff.
Increasing wage structure of Greenwood Jeff
– 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 Greenwood Jeff.
Regulatory challenges
– Greenwood Jeff 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 Global Business industry regulations.
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.
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. Greenwood Jeff 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Greenwood Jeff 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Greenwood Jeff has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Greenwood Jeff needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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 GreenWood Resources: A Global Sustainable Venture in the Making 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 Greenwood Jeff needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.