Sotherly Hotels B Pref (SOHOB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Real Estate Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sotherly Hotels B Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sotherly Hotels B Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sotherly Hotels B Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sotherly Hotels B Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sotherly Hotels B Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sotherly Hotels B Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sotherly Hotels B Pref
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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref
Strengths of Sotherly Hotels B Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sotherly Hotels B Pref are -
Learning organization
- Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sotherly Hotels B Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sotherly Hotels B Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sotherly Hotels B Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sotherly Hotels B Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Sotherly Hotels B Pref
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sotherly Hotels B Pref does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Weaknesses of Sotherly Hotels B Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sotherly Hotels B Pref are -
Need for greater diversity
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Sotherly Hotels B Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sotherly Hotels B Pref products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sotherly Hotels B Pref needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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. Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sotherly Hotels B Pref, 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Real Estate Operations industry, but Sotherly Hotels B Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sotherly Hotels B Pref to focus more on services in the Real Estate Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sotherly Hotels B Pref, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sotherly Hotels B Pref has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sotherly Hotels B Pref has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Real Estate Operations industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Real Estate Operations industry, Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Sotherly Hotels B Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sotherly Hotels B Pref are -
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. Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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. Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sotherly Hotels B Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sotherly Hotels B Pref can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sotherly Hotels B Pref operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sotherly Hotels B Pref to increase its market reach. Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sotherly Hotels B Pref is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sotherly Hotels B Pref can utilize new technology in the field of Real Estate Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Real Estate Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sotherly Hotels B Pref can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sotherly Hotels B Pref can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Sotherly Hotels B Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sotherly Hotels B Pref are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Increasing wage structure of Sotherly Hotels B Pref
– 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref.
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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sotherly Hotels B Pref is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sotherly Hotels B Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref 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 Sotherly Hotels B Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.