SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ascendas Hospitality (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ascendas Hospitality is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ascendas Hospitality
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ascendas Hospitality can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ascendas Hospitality, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ascendas Hospitality
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ascendas Hospitality
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 Ascendas Hospitality
Strengths of Ascendas Hospitality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ascendas Hospitality are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ascendas Hospitality in Real Estate Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ascendas Hospitality has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Ascendas Hospitality 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
– Ascendas Hospitality is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– Ascendas Hospitality has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ascendas Hospitality to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ascendas Hospitality to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ascendas Hospitality is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Learning organization
- Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ascendas Hospitality emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ascendas Hospitality has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ascendas Hospitality 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ascendas Hospitality are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ascendas Hospitality 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. Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ascendas Hospitality, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ascendas Hospitality has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ascendas Hospitality 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Ascendas Hospitality strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ascendas Hospitality is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Real Estate Operations industry, but Ascendas Hospitality needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ascendas Hospitality to focus more on services in the Real Estate Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ascendas Hospitality, 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.
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ascendas Hospitality 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ascendas Hospitality is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ascendas Hospitality to provide better information regarding Real Estate Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ascendas Hospitality Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ascendas Hospitality are -
Manufacturing automation
– Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ascendas Hospitality has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help Ascendas Hospitality to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ascendas Hospitality products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Ascendas Hospitality 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. Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ascendas Hospitality is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ascendas Hospitality can utilize new technology in the field of Real Estate Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ascendas Hospitality 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, Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Real Estate Operations industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ascendas Hospitality in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now Ascendas Hospitality can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Ascendas Hospitality can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ascendas Hospitality to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ascendas Hospitality can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Ascendas Hospitality External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ascendas Hospitality are -
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ascendas Hospitality 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
– Ascendas Hospitality 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. Ascendas Hospitality can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
Increasing wage structure of Ascendas Hospitality
– 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 Ascendas Hospitality.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Ascendas Hospitality needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Real Estate Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Ascendas Hospitality in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Ascendas Hospitality.
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.
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 Ascendas Hospitality business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ascendas Hospitality 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.
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. Ascendas Hospitality 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ascendas Hospitality 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.
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. Ascendas Hospitality can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ascendas Hospitality Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality 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 Ascendas Hospitality needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.