SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Oasis Crescent (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Oasis Crescent is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Oasis Crescent can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Oasis Crescent, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Oasis Crescent
2. Improving business portfolio management of Oasis Crescent
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 Oasis Crescent
Strengths of Oasis Crescent | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Oasis Crescent are -
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– Oasis Crescent is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Real Estate Operations industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Oasis Crescent 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Oasis Crescent has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Oasis Crescent 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Oasis Crescent is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– Oasis Crescent is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Oasis Crescent has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Oasis Crescent to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Oasis Crescent emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent in Real Estate Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Oasis Crescent
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Oasis Crescent does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Oasis Crescent | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Oasis Crescent are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Oasis Crescent products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Oasis Crescent needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Oasis Crescent ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Oasis Crescent, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Oasis Crescent has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Oasis Crescent 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. Oasis Crescent should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of Oasis Crescent strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Oasis Crescent 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Africa, Oasis Crescent 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Oasis Crescent 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Oasis Crescent 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Oasis Crescent supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Oasis Crescent is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Oasis Crescent vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Oasis Crescent is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Oasis Crescent is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Oasis Crescent 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.
Oasis Crescent Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Oasis Crescent are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Oasis Crescent 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Oasis Crescent 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Oasis Crescent to increase its market reach. Oasis Crescent will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Oasis Crescent has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help Oasis Crescent to build a more holistic ecosystem for Oasis Crescent 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. Oasis Crescent 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. Oasis Crescent 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.
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 Oasis Crescent in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now Oasis Crescent can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Oasis Crescent 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Oasis Crescent 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Oasis Crescent to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Oasis Crescent 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Oasis Crescent 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Oasis Crescent can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Oasis Crescent External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Oasis Crescent are -
Regulatory challenges
– Oasis Crescent 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Oasis Crescent is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Oasis Crescent needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Real Estate Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Oasis Crescent 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Real Estate Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Oasis Crescent 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Oasis Crescent 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.
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. Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent.
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 Oasis Crescent in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Oasis Crescent
– 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 Oasis Crescent.
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 Oasis Crescent business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Oasis Crescent 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oasis Crescent Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent 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 Oasis Crescent needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
