micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India
mHS is a social enterprise for the provision of affordable housing in India. After India's microfinance industry collapses, mHS needs to reposition itself for continued operations and long-term growth.
Swot Analysis of "micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India" written by William R. Kerr, Alexis Brownell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mhs Housing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Social enterprise and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mhs Housing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mhs Housing 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mhs Housing
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mhs Housing
Strengths micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mhs Housing in micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mhs Housing in the sector have low bargaining power. micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mhs Housing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Mhs Housing has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mhs Housing to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mhs Housing is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Mhs Housing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mhs Housing has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mhs Housing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mhs Housing 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mhs Housing 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Mhs Housing has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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.
Analytics focus
– Mhs Housing is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by William R. Kerr, Alexis Brownell can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Innovation driven organization
– Mhs Housing is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Mhs Housing 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 Mhs Housing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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.
Weaknesses micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, William R. Kerr, Alexis Brownell suggests that, Mhs Housing 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Mhs Housing, firm in the HBR case study micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mhs Housing is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Mhs Housing needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mhs Housing to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India HBR case study mentions - Mhs Housing 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India, is just above the industry average. Mhs Housing 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Mhs Housing 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mhs Housing has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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 Mhs Housing 's lucrative customers.
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 Mhs Housing supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mhs Housing vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India, in the dynamic environment Mhs Housing has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Mhs Housing has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India | 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mhs Housing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mhs Housing 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mhs Housing 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.
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 Mhs Housing in the consumer business. Now Mhs Housing can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mhs Housing to increase its market reach. Mhs Housing 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Mhs Housing can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mhs Housing 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 Mhs Housing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mhs Housing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mhs Housing in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Mhs Housing 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mhs Housing has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Mhs Housing to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India case study. Mhs Housing can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Mhs Housing 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Mhs Housing can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mhs Housing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India, Mhs Housing may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Regulatory challenges
– Mhs Housing 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mhs Housing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mhs Housing needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mhs Housing 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India .
Environmental challenges
– Mhs Housing 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. Mhs Housing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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 Mhs Housing business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Mhs Housing in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mhs Housing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Mhs Housing
– 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 Mhs Housing.
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 Mhs Housing is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Mhs Housing.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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 micro Home Solutions: A Social Housing Initiative in India 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 Mhs Housing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.