SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CDL Hospitality Trusts (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CDL Hospitality Trusts is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CDL Hospitality Trusts
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CDL Hospitality Trusts can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CDL Hospitality Trusts, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CDL Hospitality Trusts
2. Improving business portfolio management of CDL Hospitality Trusts
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 CDL Hospitality Trusts
Strengths of CDL Hospitality Trusts | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CDL Hospitality Trusts are -
Organizational Resilience of CDL Hospitality Trusts
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing CDL Hospitality Trusts does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– CDL Hospitality Trusts is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– CDL Hospitality Trusts has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CDL Hospitality Trusts to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CDL Hospitality Trusts to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Innovation driven organization
– CDL Hospitality Trusts is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Analytics focus
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 Singapore 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CDL Hospitality Trusts has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that CDL Hospitality Trusts has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of CDL Hospitality Trusts in Real Estate Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– CDL Hospitality Trusts is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in Singapore. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Singapore. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of CDL Hospitality Trusts | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CDL Hospitality Trusts are -
Need for greater diversity
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CDL Hospitality Trusts has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Real Estate Operations industry over the last five years. CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, CDL Hospitality Trusts has high operating costs in the Real Estate Operations industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract CDL Hospitality Trusts lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at CDL Hospitality Trusts, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. CDL Hospitality Trusts has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
High dependence on CDL Hospitality Trusts ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of CDL Hospitality Trusts, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though CDL Hospitality Trusts has some of the most successful models in the Real Estate Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. CDL Hospitality Trusts should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of CDL Hospitality Trusts strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
CDL Hospitality Trusts Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CDL Hospitality Trusts are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Buying journey improvements
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for CDL Hospitality Trusts in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Real Estate Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Real Estate Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. CDL Hospitality Trusts 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. CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– CDL Hospitality Trusts can develop new processes and procedures in Real Estate Operations industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CDL Hospitality Trusts has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help CDL Hospitality Trusts to build a more holistic ecosystem for CDL Hospitality Trusts products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
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 CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects CDL Hospitality Trusts can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Threats CDL Hospitality Trusts External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CDL Hospitality Trusts are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
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 CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
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. CDL Hospitality Trusts can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Environmental challenges
– CDL Hospitality Trusts needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. CDL Hospitality Trusts can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
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 CDL Hospitality Trusts.
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 CDL Hospitality Trusts in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that CDL Hospitality Trusts is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– CDL Hospitality Trusts has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, CDL Hospitality Trusts 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CDL Hospitality Trusts Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts 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 CDL Hospitality Trusts needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.