Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation
The prevailing geographic model for high-technology industrial organization has been the "nerdistan," a sprawling, car-oriented suburb organized around office parks. This seems to contradict a basic insight of urban theory, which associates dense urban centers with higher levels of innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. This article examines the geography of recent venture capital finance startups across U.S. metros and within a subset of them by neighborhood. It concludes that the model is changing. The suburban model might have been an historical aberration, and innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship are realigning in the same urban centers that traditionally fostered them.
Swot Analysis of "Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation" written by Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Urban Geography facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Venture capital and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Urban Geography, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Urban Geography 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Urban Geography
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 Urban Geography
Strengths Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Urban Geography in Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Urban Geography to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Urban Geography to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Urban Geography has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Urban Geography to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Urban Geography in the sector have low bargaining power. Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Urban Geography to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Urban Geography has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Urban Geography is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Urban Geography has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Urban Geography 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)
– Urban Geography 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation - 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
– Urban Geography is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Urban Geography 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Urban Geography is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Urban Geography 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 Urban Geography in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Urban Geography 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 Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander 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.
Weaknesses Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Urban Geography, firm in the HBR case study Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Urban Geography 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation, it seems that the employees of Urban Geography 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander suggests that, Urban Geography 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Urban Geography 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 - Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Urban Geography is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Urban Geography needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Urban Geography to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Urban Geography has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Urban Geography 's lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation HBR case study mentions - Urban Geography 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Urban Geography 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Urban Geography 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation | 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Urban Geography 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 Urban Geography to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Urban Geography has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Urban Geography to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation case study. Urban Geography can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Urban Geography is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Urban Geography 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.
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 Urban Geography in the consumer business. Now Urban Geography can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Urban Geography 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Urban Geography can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Urban Geography can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Urban Geography 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, Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Urban Geography can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Urban Geography 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Urban Geography to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Urban Geography can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Urban Geography 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Urban Geography to increase its market reach. Urban Geography 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Urban Geography 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation .
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 Urban Geography.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Urban Geography has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Urban Geography 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.
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 Urban Geography in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Urban Geography 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Urban Geography 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Urban Geography 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.
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 Urban Geography business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation, Urban Geography 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 .
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. Urban Geography can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Urban Geography with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Rise of the Startup City: The Changing Geography of the Venture Capital Financed Innovation 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 Urban Geography needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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