Colony NorthStar Pref H (CLNY_ph) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Colony NorthStar Pref H (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Colony NorthStar Pref H is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Colony NorthStar Pref H
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Colony NorthStar Pref H can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Colony NorthStar Pref H, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Colony NorthStar Pref H
2. Improving business portfolio management of Colony NorthStar Pref H
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 Colony NorthStar Pref H
Strengths of Colony NorthStar Pref H | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Colony NorthStar Pref H are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Colony NorthStar Pref H is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Colony NorthStar Pref H has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Colony NorthStar Pref H have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Organizational Resilience of Colony NorthStar Pref H
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Colony NorthStar Pref H does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Colony NorthStar Pref H has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Colony NorthStar Pref H staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Colony NorthStar Pref H emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 lead change in
– Colony NorthStar Pref H is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Colony NorthStar Pref H in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Colony NorthStar Pref H in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Colony NorthStar Pref H is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Training and development
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Weaknesses of Colony NorthStar Pref H | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Colony NorthStar Pref H are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Colony NorthStar Pref H, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Colony NorthStar Pref H has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Colony NorthStar Pref H is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Colony NorthStar Pref H 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. Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Colony NorthStar Pref H strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Colony NorthStar Pref H needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Colony NorthStar Pref H to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Colony NorthStar Pref H, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
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 Colony NorthStar Pref H supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Colony NorthStar Pref H is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Colony NorthStar Pref H vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Colony NorthStar Pref H products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Colony NorthStar Pref H needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Colony NorthStar Pref H is planning to shift buying processes online.
Colony NorthStar Pref H Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Colony NorthStar Pref H are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Colony NorthStar Pref H can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Colony NorthStar Pref H has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Colony NorthStar Pref H to build a more holistic ecosystem for Colony NorthStar Pref H products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Colony NorthStar Pref H can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Colony NorthStar Pref H operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Colony NorthStar Pref H can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Colony NorthStar Pref H has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Colony NorthStar Pref H to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Colony NorthStar Pref H to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Colony NorthStar Pref H External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Colony NorthStar Pref H are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Colony NorthStar Pref H may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Colony NorthStar Pref H has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Colony NorthStar Pref H is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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. Colony NorthStar Pref H can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H.
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. Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Colony NorthStar Pref H can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Colony NorthStar Pref H 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.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H prominent markets.
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 Colony NorthStar Pref H in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Colony NorthStar Pref H Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H 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 Colony NorthStar Pref H needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
