SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for GreenTree Hospitality (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , GreenTree Hospitality is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of GreenTree Hospitality
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that GreenTree Hospitality can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the GreenTree Hospitality, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of GreenTree Hospitality
2. Improving business portfolio management of GreenTree Hospitality
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Hotels & Motels sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of GreenTree Hospitality
Strengths of GreenTree Hospitality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of GreenTree Hospitality are -
Innovation driven organization
– GreenTree Hospitality is one of the most innovative firm in Hotels & Motels sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– GreenTree Hospitality has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Hotels & Motels industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of GreenTree Hospitality have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of GreenTree Hospitality in Hotels & Motels industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Hotels & Motels
– GreenTree Hospitality is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Hotels & Motels industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled GreenTree Hospitality in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of GreenTree Hospitality comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Hotels & Motels industry
– GreenTree Hospitality is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– GreenTree Hospitality is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Hotels & Motels industry
– GreenTree Hospitality has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled GreenTree Hospitality to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Hotels & Motels industry. The sustainable margins have also helped GreenTree Hospitality to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at GreenTree Hospitality emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Hotels & Motels industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For GreenTree Hospitality digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– GreenTree Hospitality has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – GreenTree Hospitality staying ahead in the Hotels & Motels industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– GreenTree Hospitality is present in almost all the verticals within the Hotels & Motels industry. This has provided GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Weaknesses of GreenTree Hospitality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GreenTree Hospitality are -
Lack of clear differentiation of GreenTree Hospitality products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, GreenTree Hospitality needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at GreenTree Hospitality, in the dynamic environment of Hotels & Motels industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. GreenTree Hospitality has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of GreenTree Hospitality, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Hotels & Motels 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, GreenTree Hospitality is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help GreenTree Hospitality to provide better information regarding Hotels & Motels products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, GreenTree Hospitality has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Hotels & Motels industry over the last five years. GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, GreenTree Hospitality needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though GreenTree Hospitality has some of the most successful models in the Hotels & Motels industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. GreenTree Hospitality should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of GreenTree Hospitality is just above the Hotels & Motels 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.
Employees’ less understanding of GreenTree Hospitality strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Hotels & Motels industry, GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Skills based hiring in Hotels & Motels industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at GreenTree Hospitality 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.
GreenTree Hospitality Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of GreenTree Hospitality are -
Manufacturing automation
– GreenTree Hospitality can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Hotels & Motels 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Hotels & Motels industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. GreenTree Hospitality 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. GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Hotels & Motels industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. GreenTree Hospitality can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of GreenTree Hospitality has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Hotels & Motels industry. This can help GreenTree Hospitality to build a more holistic ecosystem for GreenTree Hospitality products in the Hotels & Motels industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for GreenTree Hospitality 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.
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. GreenTree Hospitality can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Hotels & Motels industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for GreenTree Hospitality in the Hotels & Motels industry. Now GreenTree Hospitality can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help GreenTree Hospitality to increase its market reach. GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at GreenTree Hospitality 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 Hotels & Motels industry.
Buying journey improvements
– GreenTree Hospitality can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Threats GreenTree Hospitality External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of GreenTree Hospitality 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. GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– GreenTree Hospitality 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 Hotels & Motels 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 GreenTree Hospitality.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality in the Hotels & Motels sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on GreenTree Hospitality 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 Hotels & Motels industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– GreenTree Hospitality 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Hotels & Motels industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. GreenTree Hospitality can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, GreenTree Hospitality may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Hotels & Motels sector.
Regulatory challenges
– GreenTree Hospitality 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 Hotels & Motels industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that GreenTree Hospitality is facing in Hotels & Motels sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 GreenTree Hospitality business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GreenTree Hospitality Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality 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 GreenTree Hospitality needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.