The Montana Land Reliance is a small not-for-profit organization in the business of creating conservation easements on private lands in Montana. The easements preserve the scenic character and recreational value of the lands by precluding subdivision and other forms of real estate development. The Reliance, established only in 1976, has grown rapidly in recent years. At the time of the case, its leaders face the need to define the market they want to serve, determine the right rate of growth, and create the institutional capabilities to capitalize on their early successes.
Swot Analysis of "Montana Land Reliance" written by Forest Reinhardt, Thomas A. Patterson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Montana Easements facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Montana Land Reliance case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Motivating people, Social enterprise, Strategy, Sustainability and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Montana Land Reliance casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Montana Land Reliance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Montana Land Reliance case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Montana Easements, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Montana Easements 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 Montana Land Reliance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Montana Land Reliance case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Montana Easements
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 Montana Easements
Strengths Montana Land Reliance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Montana Easements in Montana Land Reliance Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Montana Easements 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 Montana Land Reliance - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Montana Easements is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Montana Land Reliance are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Montana Easements in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Montana Easements has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Montana Easements 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Montana Easements in the sector have low bargaining power. Montana Land Reliance has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Montana Easements to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Montana Easements is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Montana Land Reliance 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
– Montana Easements is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Montana Easements 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Montana Land Reliance 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.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Montana Easements 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 Montana Easements in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Montana Easements 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 Montana Easements is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Montana Land Reliance Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Montana Easements is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Montana Land Reliance Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Montana Land Reliance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Montana Land Reliance are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Montana Easements is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Montana Land Reliance can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Montana Easements 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Montana Easements 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Montana Easements 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 Montana Land Reliance, is just above the industry average. Montana Easements 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Montana Land Reliance 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 Montana Easements 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Montana Land Reliance 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 Montana Easements has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Montana Land Reliance, in the dynamic environment Montana Easements has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Montana Easements has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Montana Easements 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Montana Easements 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. Montana Easements 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Montana Easements products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Montana Easements needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Montana Land Reliance | 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 Montana Land Reliance are -
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 Montana Easements in the consumer business. Now Montana Easements can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Montana Easements can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Montana Easements operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
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 Montana Easements 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.
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. Montana Easements can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Montana Easements 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
– Montana Easements 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Montana Easements is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Montana Land Reliance case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Montana Easements can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Montana Easements 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 Montana Easements 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 Montana Easements can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Montana Easements 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, Montana Land Reliance, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Montana Easements 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
– Montana Easements 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 Montana Land Reliance - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Montana Easements to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Montana Land Reliance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Montana Land Reliance are -
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Montana Easements 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Montana Easements 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 Montana Land Reliance .
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 Montana Easements.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Montana Easements in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Montana Easements 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
– Montana Easements has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Montana Easements 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Montana Easements demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Montana Easements needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Montana Easements with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Montana Easements in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Montana Easements 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Montana Land Reliance 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 Montana Land Reliance 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 Montana Land Reliance 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 Montana Land Reliance 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 Montana Land Reliance 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 Montana Easements needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
