Retail Value (RVI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Real Estate Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Retail Value (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Retail Value is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Retail Value can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Retail Value, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Retail Value 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 Retail Value can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Retail Value
2. Improving business portfolio management of Retail Value
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 Retail Value
Strengths of Retail Value | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Retail Value are -
Innovation driven organization
– Retail Value is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Retail Value 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.
Organizational Resilience of Retail Value
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Retail Value does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Retail Value digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Retail Value 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Retail Value has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Real Estate Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Retail Value have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Retail Value is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided Retail Value 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
– Retail Value has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Retail Value to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Retail Value has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Retail Value staying ahead in the Real Estate Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Retail Value 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Retail Value 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.
Training and development
– Retail Value 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.
Analytics focus
– Retail Value 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 Real Estate Operations 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.
Weaknesses of Retail Value | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Retail Value are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Retail Value 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Retail Value 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. Retail Value 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 Retail Value is just above the Real Estate Operations 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Retail Value is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Retail Value to provide better information regarding Real Estate Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Retail Value supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Retail Value is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Retail Value vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Retail Value products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Retail Value needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Retail Value 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Retail Value, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Retail Value has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Retail Value 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 Retail Value can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Retail Value is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Real Estate Operations industry, Retail Value 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Retail Value strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Retail Value 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.
Retail Value Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Retail Value are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Retail Value has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help Retail Value to build a more holistic ecosystem for Retail Value products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Retail Value 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 Retail Value to increase its market reach. Retail Value 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Retail Value can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Real Estate Operations 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Retail Value 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Retail Value 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 Retail Value to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Retail Value 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Retail Value 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 Retail Value to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Retail Value 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Retail Value 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Retail Value has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Real Estate Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Retail Value to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Retail Value to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Retail Value in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now Retail Value can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Retail Value can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Retail Value operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Threats Retail Value External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Retail Value are -
Increasing wage structure of Retail Value
– 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 Retail Value.
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.
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. Retail Value 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Retail Value has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Retail Value 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Retail Value 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
– Retail Value 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. Retail Value can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Retail Value 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 Retail Value prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Retail Value 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Retail Value 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Retail Value 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Retail Value 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Real Estate Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Retail Value can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Retail Value Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Retail Value 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 Retail Value 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 Retail Value 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 Retail Value 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 Retail Value needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.