SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Frasers Property (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Frasers Property is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Frasers Property can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Frasers Property, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Frasers Property
2. Improving business portfolio management of Frasers Property
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Frasers Property
Strengths of Frasers Property | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Frasers Property are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– Frasers Property is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Real Estate Operations industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Frasers Property in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Frasers Property 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– Frasers Property has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Frasers Property to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Frasers Property to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Frasers Property has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Frasers Property to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Frasers Property has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Frasers Property 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.
Training and development
– Frasers Property has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Frasers Property is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided Frasers Property 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.
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Frasers Property digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Frasers Property has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Frasers Property has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Frasers Property staying ahead in the Real Estate Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Frasers Property 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– Frasers Property is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Frasers Property | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Frasers Property are -
Employees’ less understanding of Frasers Property strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Frasers Property 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Frasers Property, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Frasers Property has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Frasers Property 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 of Frasers Property 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Frasers Property 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Frasers Property needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Real Estate Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Frasers Property can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Frasers Property is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Frasers Property 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Frasers Property, 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Frasers Property 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Frasers Property 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Frasers Property has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Real Estate Operations industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Frasers Property Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Frasers Property are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Frasers Property 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.
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. Frasers Property can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Frasers Property can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Frasers Property has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help Frasers Property to build a more holistic ecosystem for Frasers Property products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Frasers Property 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Frasers Property has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Real Estate Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Frasers Property to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Frasers Property to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Frasers Property 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, Frasers Property can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Frasers Property operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Frasers Property 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Frasers Property 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Frasers Property 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.
Threats Frasers Property External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Frasers Property are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Frasers Property 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.
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.
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. Frasers Property can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Frasers Property.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Frasers Property 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Frasers Property is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Frasers Property 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.
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 Frasers Property in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Frasers Property has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Frasers Property 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.
Increasing wage structure of Frasers Property
– 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 Frasers Property.
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. Frasers Property 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 to Real Estate Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Frasers Property with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Real Estate Operations sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Frasers Property 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Frasers Property Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property 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 Frasers Property needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.