Swot Analysis of "Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road"" written by Arthur I Segel includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Bonnie Road facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial analysis, Financial management, Mergers & acquisitions and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road"
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bonnie Road, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bonnie Road 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bonnie Road
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 Bonnie Road
Strengths Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bonnie Road in Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Bonnie Road 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 Bonnie Road is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bonnie Road in the sector have low bargaining power. Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bonnie Road to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bonnie Road is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Bonnie Road has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bonnie Road 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bonnie Road 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Bonnie Road
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Bonnie Road does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bonnie Road is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Bonnie Road 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.
High brand equity
– Bonnie Road has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bonnie Road to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bonnie Road in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Bonnie Road has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bonnie Road is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Bonnie Road 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road", is just above the industry average. Bonnie Road needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bonnie Road is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Bonnie Road 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bonnie Road 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road", 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" HBR case study mentions - Bonnie Road takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Arthur I Segel suggests that, Bonnie Road 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road", it seems that the employees of Bonnie Road don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Opportunities Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" | 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bonnie Road 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.
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. Bonnie Road can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bonnie Road 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 Bonnie Road to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bonnie Road 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bonnie Road is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bonnie Road can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bonnie Road 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bonnie Road has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Bonnie Road to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" case study. Bonnie Road 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, Bonnie Road can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bonnie Road operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Bonnie Road 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bonnie Road 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bonnie Road can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bonnie Road to increase its market reach. Bonnie Road 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.
Threats Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bonnie Road is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bonnie Road has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bonnie Road 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.
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 Bonnie Road business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bonnie Road 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bonnie Road 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.
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 Bonnie Road in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Bonnie Road.
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.
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. Bonnie Road needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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. Bonnie Road 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Bonnie Road with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bonnie Road 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Real Estate Finance: A Technical Note Based on "Bonnie Road" 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 Bonnie Road needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.