NEPI Rockcastle (NRPJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Real Estate Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for NEPI Rockcastle (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , NEPI Rockcastle is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, 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, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that NEPI Rockcastle can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the NEPI Rockcastle, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of NEPI Rockcastle
2. Improving business portfolio management of NEPI Rockcastle
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of NEPI Rockcastle
Strengths of NEPI Rockcastle | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of NEPI Rockcastle are -
Learning organization
- NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at NEPI Rockcastle emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For NEPI Rockcastle digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– NEPI Rockcastle is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– NEPI Rockcastle is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in South Africa. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in South Africa. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– NEPI Rockcastle is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Training and development
– NEPI Rockcastle 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
– NEPI Rockcastle is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– NEPI Rockcastle has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of NEPI Rockcastle in the Services sector have low bargaining power. NEPI Rockcastle has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps NEPI Rockcastle to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Weaknesses of NEPI Rockcastle | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of NEPI Rockcastle are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though NEPI Rockcastle 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. NEPI Rockcastle should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Need for greater diversity
– NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of NEPI Rockcastle products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, NEPI Rockcastle needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Real Estate Operations industry, NEPI Rockcastle needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as NEPI Rockcastle is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Africa, NEPI Rockcastle 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, NEPI Rockcastle is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help NEPI Rockcastle 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.
High dependence on NEPI Rockcastle ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of NEPI Rockcastle strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of NEPI Rockcastle 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.
NEPI Rockcastle Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of NEPI Rockcastle are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of NEPI Rockcastle has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help NEPI Rockcastle to build a more holistic ecosystem for NEPI Rockcastle products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– NEPI Rockcastle 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.
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. NEPI Rockcastle 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. NEPI Rockcastle 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.
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 NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Buying journey improvements
– NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, NEPI Rockcastle is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 NEPI Rockcastle in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now NEPI Rockcastle can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help NEPI Rockcastle to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– NEPI Rockcastle can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Threats NEPI Rockcastle External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of NEPI Rockcastle are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of NEPI Rockcastle.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– NEPI Rockcastle has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, NEPI Rockcastle 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that NEPI Rockcastle is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Increasing wage structure of NEPI Rockcastle
– 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 NEPI Rockcastle.
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. NEPI Rockcastle can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– NEPI Rockcastle 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. NEPI Rockcastle can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on NEPI Rockcastle 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of NEPI Rockcastle Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle 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 NEPI Rockcastle needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.