Green REIT (GREEF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Green REIT (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Green REIT is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Green REIT can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Green REIT, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Green REIT 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 Green REIT can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Green REIT
2. Improving business portfolio management of Green REIT
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 Green REIT
Strengths of Green REIT | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Green REIT are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Green REIT has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Green REIT 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 Green REIT 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Green REIT in the sector have low bargaining power. Green REIT has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Green REIT to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in
– Green REIT 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 Green REIT in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Green REIT is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Green REIT is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Organizational Resilience of Green REIT
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Green REIT does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Green REIT 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Green REIT 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.
Learning organization
- Green REIT 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 Green REIT is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Green REIT emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Green REIT 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 Green REIT have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Green REIT 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 Green REIT | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Green REIT are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Green REIT 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Green REIT 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Green REIT 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 Green REIT lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Green REIT is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Green REIT to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Green REIT 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Green REIT strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Green REIT 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Green REIT 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. Green REIT 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Green REIT has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Green REIT should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Green REIT 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 Green REIT can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Green REIT is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Green REIT ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Green REIT still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Green REIT has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Green REIT 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.
Green REIT Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Green REIT are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Green REIT 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Green REIT 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Green REIT 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Green REIT can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Green REIT 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Green REIT 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 Green REIT to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Green REIT 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.
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 Green REIT 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Green REIT to increase its market reach. Green REIT 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Green REIT can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Green REIT operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Green REIT 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Green REIT 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Green REIT 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 Green REIT to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Green REIT to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Green REIT External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Green REIT are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Green REIT 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Green REIT has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Green REIT 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Green REIT high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Green REIT with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Green REIT is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Green REIT 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, Green REIT 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 Green REIT prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Green REIT in industry. The 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.
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 Green REIT business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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. Green REIT can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Green REIT 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 industry and other sectors.
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 Green REIT in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Green REIT Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Green REIT 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 Green REIT 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 Green REIT 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 Green REIT 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 Green REIT needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.