Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref (ABR_pa) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref
Strengths of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Training and development
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
High brand equity
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Learning organization
- Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is just above the 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref are -
Buying journey improvements
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 industry.
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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to build a more holistic ecosystem for Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref in the industry. Now Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref to increase its market reach. Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Threats Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref prominent markets.
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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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. Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref 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 Arbor Realty Trust Inc Pa Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.