Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions
Summarizes several of the major federal environmental statutes, most notably the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act ("CERCLA" or "Superfund"). Also discusses several state and local regulations.
Authors :: Arthur I Segel, Jeff Mandelbaum, Armen Panossian
Swot Analysis of "Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions" written by Arthur I Segel, Jeff Mandelbaum, Armen Panossian includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Environmental Cercla facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sustainability and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Environmental Cercla, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Environmental Cercla 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Environmental Cercla
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Environmental Cercla
Strengths Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Environmental Cercla in Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Environmental Cercla has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Environmental Cercla are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Environmental Cercla in the sector have low bargaining power. Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Environmental Cercla to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Environmental Cercla 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Environmental Cercla is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Environmental Cercla 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 Environmental Cercla in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Environmental Cercla 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 Environmental Cercla is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Environmental Cercla to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Environmental Cercla to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Environmental Cercla has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Environmental Cercla to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Environmental Cercla is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Environmental Cercla in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions are -
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 Environmental Cercla supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Environmental Cercla vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Environmental Cercla is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions, it seems that the employees of Environmental Cercla 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, Arthur I Segel, Jeff Mandelbaum, Armen Panossian suggests that, Environmental Cercla 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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 Environmental Cercla has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Environmental Cercla 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Environmental Cercla 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Environmental Cercla, firm in the HBR case study Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Environmental Cercla has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Environmental Cercla even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Environmental Cercla 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Environmental Cercla 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.
Opportunities Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions | 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Environmental Cercla can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Environmental Cercla 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Environmental Cercla to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Environmental Cercla in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Environmental Cercla can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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. Environmental Cercla can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Environmental Cercla 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 Environmental Cercla to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Environmental Cercla 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. Environmental Cercla 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Environmental Cercla has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Environmental Cercla to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions case study. Environmental Cercla 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, Environmental Cercla is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Environmental Cercla 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Environmental Cercla 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Environmental Cercla can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Environmental Cercla 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.
Threats Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions are -
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 Environmental Cercla.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Environmental Cercla is facing in Leadership & Managing People 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 Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Environmental Cercla can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Environmental Cercla in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
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. Environmental Cercla 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Environmental Cercla has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Environmental Cercla needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Environmental Cercla 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Environmental Cercla with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Environmental Cercla in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Environmental Cercla
– 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 Environmental Cercla.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Environmental Cercla 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions, Environmental Cercla may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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 Environmental Law in Real Estate Transactions 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 Environmental Cercla needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
