Aspen Group Unit (APZ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Real Estate Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Aspen Group Unit (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Aspen Group Unit is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Aspen Group Unit can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Aspen Group Unit, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Aspen Group Unit
2. Improving business portfolio management of Aspen Group Unit
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Aspen Group Unit
Strengths of Aspen Group Unit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Aspen Group Unit are -
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– Aspen Group Unit is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Real Estate Operations industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Aspen Group Unit in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Aspen Group Unit digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Aspen Group Unit 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Aspen Group Unit 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.
Analytics focus
– Aspen Group Unit 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 Australia 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
– Aspen Group Unit has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Aspen Group Unit to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Aspen Group Unit to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Aspen Group Unit has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Aspen Group Unit 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.
Training and development
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
Organizational Resilience of Aspen Group Unit
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Aspen Group Unit does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Aspen Group Unit is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Aspen Group Unit comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Real Estate Operations 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Aspen Group Unit in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Aspen Group Unit has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Aspen Group Unit to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Aspen Group Unit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Aspen Group Unit are -
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Aspen Group Unit 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Aspen Group Unit has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Real Estate Operations industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Aspen Group Unit 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Aspen Group Unit is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Aspen Group Unit 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Aspen Group Unit, 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Aspen Group Unit 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. Aspen Group Unit 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Aspen Group Unit is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Real Estate Operations industry, but Aspen Group Unit needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Aspen Group Unit to focus more on services in the Real Estate Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Aspen Group Unit strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Aspen Group Unit 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Aspen Group Unit 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Aspen Group Unit has high operating costs in the Real Estate Operations industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Aspen Group Unit lucrative customers.
Aspen Group Unit Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Aspen Group Unit are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Aspen Group Unit has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help Aspen Group Unit to build a more holistic ecosystem for Aspen Group Unit products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Aspen Group Unit is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Aspen Group Unit 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Aspen Group Unit 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
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. Aspen Group Unit 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. Aspen Group Unit 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Aspen Group Unit to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
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 Aspen Group Unit 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Aspen Group Unit can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Aspen Group Unit operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Aspen Group Unit 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.
Threats Aspen Group Unit External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Aspen Group Unit 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. Aspen Group Unit 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Aspen Group Unit 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.
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. Aspen Group Unit needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Real Estate Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Aspen Group Unit 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.
Increasing wage structure of Aspen Group Unit
– 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 Aspen Group Unit.
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 Aspen Group Unit.
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 Aspen Group Unit business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Real Estate Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Aspen Group Unit with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Real Estate Operations sector.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Aspen Group Unit 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Aspen Group Unit Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit 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 Aspen Group Unit needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.