Brandywine (BDN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Real Estate Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Brandywine (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Brandywine is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Brandywine can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brandywine, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brandywine 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 Brandywine can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Brandywine
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brandywine
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brandywine
Strengths of Brandywine | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brandywine are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– Brandywine has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Brandywine to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Brandywine to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Brandywine is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– Brandywine 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Brandywine 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.
Learning organization
- Brandywine 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 Brandywine is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Brandywine emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Brandywine 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.
Organizational Resilience of Brandywine
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Brandywine does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– Brandywine is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Real Estate Operations industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Brandywine 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
– Brandywine has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Brandywine 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Brandywine is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided Brandywine 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.
High brand equity
– Brandywine has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brandywine to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Brandywine 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.
Weaknesses of Brandywine | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Brandywine are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Brandywine products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Brandywine needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Brandywine 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Brandywine, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Brandywine is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Real Estate Operations industry, but Brandywine needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Brandywine to focus more on services in the Real Estate Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Brandywine 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Brandywine 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 Brandywine can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Brandywine is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Brandywine 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Brandywine 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. Brandywine 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.
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Brandywine 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Real Estate Operations industry, Brandywine 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Brandywine needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Brandywine Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Brandywine are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brandywine 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 Brandywine to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Brandywine 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Brandywine 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Brandywine can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Brandywine operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Brandywine 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Brandywine 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.
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 Brandywine in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now Brandywine 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 Brandywine 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 Brandywine to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Brandywine 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.
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. Brandywine can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Brandywine 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.
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 Brandywine 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.
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. Brandywine 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. Brandywine 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.
Threats Brandywine External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Brandywine are -
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. Brandywine 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, Brandywine 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.
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.
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 Brandywine business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Brandywine has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Brandywine 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.
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 Brandywine in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brandywine 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Brandywine 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Brandywine 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 Brandywine prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Brandywine
– 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 Brandywine.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Brandywine is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Brandywine 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. Brandywine can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Brandywine 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brandywine Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Brandywine 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 Brandywine 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 Brandywine 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 Brandywine 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 Brandywine needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
