Pete Flint and Sami Inkinen, co-founders of RealWide.com, a real estate search web site, met for lunch at the Fish Market restaurant in San Mateo, Calif. to discuss the coming week. It was September 21, 2005, and they planned to have their web site go live within a week. Although both felt proud of what they had accomplished over the last year, this was certainly not the time for nostalgia or back-patting. A number of critical pre-launch issues would likely consume this morning's discussion. In particular, they had yet to finalize the details of their first major financing and decide on a national or local (i.e., Bay Area) focus. Additionally, certain real estate listing web sites were threatening to block their search crawlers; some of their advisors were urging them to focus more on strategic issues and less on tactical execution details; and then there was the matter of the name-did RealWide truly represent their company? As they sat down, they both wondered, what would the coming week bring?
Swot Analysis of "Realwide.com" written by Sean Harrington, Peter Reiss includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Realwide.com Week facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Realwide.com case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Realwide.com casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Realwide.com case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Realwide.com Week, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Realwide.com Week 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 Realwide.com can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Realwide.com case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Realwide.com Week
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 Realwide.com Week
Strengths Realwide.com | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Realwide.com Week in Realwide.com Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Realwide.com 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.
High brand equity
– Realwide.com Week has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Realwide.com Week to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Realwide.com Week is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Realwide.com 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
– Realwide.com Week 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 Realwide.com HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Realwide.com Week in the sector have low bargaining power. Realwide.com has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Realwide.com Week to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Realwide.com Week 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.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Realwide.com Week digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Realwide.com Week 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Realwide.com Week is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Realwide.com Week 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 Realwide.com Week is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Realwide.com Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Realwide.com Week has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Realwide.com Week 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Realwide.com Week 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Realwide.com Week in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Realwide.com | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Realwide.com are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sean Harrington, Peter Reiss suggests that, Realwide.com Week 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Realwide.com, in the dynamic environment Realwide.com Week has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Realwide.com Week has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Realwide.com Week 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Realwide.com Week is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Realwide.com can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Realwide.com Week 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Realwide.com 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 Realwide.com can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Realwide.com Week is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Realwide.com Week has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Realwide.com 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 Realwide.com Week has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Realwide.com Week has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Realwide.com should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Realwide.com Week supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Realwide.com, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Realwide.com Week vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Realwide.com Week 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.
Opportunities Realwide.com | 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 Realwide.com are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Realwide.com Week 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Realwide.com Week 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
– Realwide.com Week 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Realwide.com Week can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Realwide.com Week operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Realwide.com Week can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Realwide.com 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.
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. Realwide.com Week can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Realwide.com Week 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.
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 Realwide.com Week in the consumer business. Now Realwide.com Week can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Realwide.com Week can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Realwide.com Week is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Realwide.com 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Realwide.com Week 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Realwide.com Week to increase its market reach. Realwide.com Week 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
– Realwide.com Week 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.
Threats Realwide.com External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Realwide.com are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Realwide.com Week with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Realwide.com Week has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Realwide.com Week 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Realwide.com Week 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.
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 Realwide.com Week business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Realwide.com Week is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Realwide.com Week can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Realwide.com Week 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. Realwide.com Week can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Increasing wage structure of Realwide.com Week
– 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 Realwide.com Week.
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 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. Realwide.com Week needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Realwide.com Week in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Realwide.com Week 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Realwide.com 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 Realwide.com 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 Realwide.com 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 Realwide.com 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 Realwide.com 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 Realwide.com Week needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.