Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , WFD Unibail Rodamco is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of WFD Unibail Rodamco
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that WFD Unibail Rodamco can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the WFD Unibail Rodamco, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of WFD Unibail Rodamco
2. Improving business portfolio management of WFD Unibail Rodamco
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of WFD Unibail Rodamco
Strengths of WFD Unibail Rodamco | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of WFD Unibail Rodamco are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– WFD Unibail Rodamco has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Real Estate Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of WFD Unibail Rodamco have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– WFD Unibail Rodamco has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled WFD Unibail Rodamco to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of WFD Unibail Rodamco in Real Estate Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at WFD Unibail Rodamco emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of WFD Unibail Rodamco comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Real Estate Operations 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.
Analytics focus
– WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 Real Estate Operations industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Ability to recruit top talent
– WFD Unibail Rodamco is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– WFD Unibail Rodamco is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Real Estate Operations industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled WFD Unibail Rodamco in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– WFD Unibail Rodamco has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled WFD Unibail Rodamco to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped WFD Unibail Rodamco to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– WFD Unibail Rodamco is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of WFD Unibail Rodamco in the Services sector have low bargaining power. WFD Unibail Rodamco has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps WFD Unibail Rodamco to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of WFD Unibail Rodamco | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of WFD Unibail Rodamco are -
High dependence on WFD Unibail Rodamco ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of WFD Unibail Rodamco still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Real Estate Operations industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though WFD Unibail Rodamco has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of WFD Unibail Rodamco, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Real Estate Operations industry. 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.
Employees’ less understanding of WFD Unibail Rodamco strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Need for greater diversity
– WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of WFD Unibail Rodamco is just above the Real Estate Operations industry average. It 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of WFD Unibail Rodamco products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, WFD Unibail Rodamco needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As WFD Unibail Rodamco is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Real Estate Operations industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 Real Estate Operations industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, WFD Unibail Rodamco needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
WFD Unibail Rodamco Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of WFD Unibail Rodamco are -
Loyalty marketing
– WFD Unibail Rodamco has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, WFD Unibail Rodamco 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
– WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Manufacturing automation
– WFD Unibail Rodamco can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Real Estate Operations sector. 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, WFD Unibail Rodamco can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that WFD Unibail Rodamco operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Buying journey improvements
– WFD Unibail Rodamco can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Real Estate Operations industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
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 WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of WFD Unibail Rodamco has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help WFD Unibail Rodamco to build a more holistic ecosystem for WFD Unibail Rodamco products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Real Estate Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. WFD Unibail Rodamco can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats WFD Unibail Rodamco External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of WFD Unibail Rodamco are -
Regulatory challenges
– WFD Unibail Rodamco needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Real Estate Operations industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, WFD Unibail Rodamco may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Real Estate Operations sector.
Increasing wage structure of WFD Unibail Rodamco
– 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco.
Consumer confidence and its impact on WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 Real Estate Operations industry and other sectors.
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 WFD Unibail Rodamco business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Real Estate Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. WFD Unibail Rodamco 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.
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 WFD Unibail Rodamco in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– WFD Unibail Rodamco has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, WFD Unibail Rodamco needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Real Estate Operations 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for WFD Unibail Rodamco in Real Estate Operations industry. The Real Estate Operations 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that WFD Unibail Rodamco is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of WFD Unibail Rodamco Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco 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 WFD Unibail Rodamco needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
