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Starwood Property (STWD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Starwood Property (United States)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Starwood Property is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Starwood Property


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Starwood Property can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Starwood Property, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Starwood Property
2. Improving business portfolio management of Starwood Property
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Consumer Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Starwood Property




Strengths of Starwood Property | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Starwood Property are -

Successful track record of launching new products

– Starwood Property has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Starwood Property 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.

Organizational Resilience of Starwood Property

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Starwood Property does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Starwood Property in Consumer Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Consumer Financial Services industry

– Starwood Property has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Starwood Property to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Starwood Property to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Learning organization

- Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Starwood Property emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

High brand equity

– Starwood Property has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Starwood Property to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Starwood Property is one of the leading players in the Consumer Financial Services 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Consumer Financial Services industry

– Starwood Property is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Starwood Property in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Starwood Property has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Starwood Property to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Analytics focus

– Starwood Property 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 Consumer Financial Services 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Starwood Property comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Consumer Financial Services 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Starwood Property is present in almost all the verticals within the Consumer Financial Services industry. This has provided Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Starwood Property are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Starwood Property 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 Consumer Financial Services industry using digital technology.

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 Starwood Property supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Starwood Property is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Starwood Property vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Starwood Property is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Consumer Financial Services industry, but Starwood Property needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Starwood Property to focus more on services in the Consumer Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Starwood Property needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Consumer Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Starwood Property can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Starwood Property is planning to shift buying processes online.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Starwood Property 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Starwood Property is just above the Consumer Financial Services 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Consumer Financial Services industry, Starwood Property 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Starwood Property has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry over the last five years. Starwood Property 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.

Skills based hiring in Consumer Financial Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Starwood Property 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Starwood Property, in the dynamic environment of Consumer Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Starwood Property has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Need for greater diversity

– Starwood Property 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.




Starwood Property Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Starwood Property are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Starwood Property has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Consumer Financial Services industry. This can help Starwood Property to build a more holistic ecosystem for Starwood Property products in the Consumer Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Starwood Property 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Starwood Property is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Starwood Property can utilize new technology in the field of Consumer Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Manufacturing automation

– Starwood Property can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Consumer Financial Services 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

– Starwood Property 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Starwood Property can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Consumer Financial Services 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Starwood Property can develop new processes and procedures in Consumer Financial Services 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Starwood Property can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Starwood Property operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Consumer Financial Services sector.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Starwood Property in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Consumer Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Starwood Property 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Starwood Property 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Consumer Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Starwood Property can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.




Threats Starwood Property External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Starwood Property are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Starwood Property in Consumer Financial Services industry. The Consumer Financial Services 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Starwood Property 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.

High level of anxiety and lack of motivation

– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Starwood Property needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Consumer Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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 Starwood Property.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Consumer Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Starwood Property with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Consumer Financial Services sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Starwood Property has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Consumer Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Starwood Property needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Consumer Financial Services 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Starwood Property 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 Consumer Financial Services industry and other sectors.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property prominent markets.

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.

Increasing wage structure of Starwood Property

– 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 Starwood Property.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Starwood Property may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Consumer Financial Services sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Starwood Property 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 Consumer Financial Services 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 Starwood Property business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Starwood Property Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property 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 Starwood Property needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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