CFI (CFI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Real Estate Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CFI (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CFI is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CFI can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CFI, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CFI 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 CFI can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CFI
2. Improving business portfolio management of CFI
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CFI
Strengths of CFI | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CFI are -
Training and development
– CFI 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– CFI is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– CFI is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Real Estate Operations industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled CFI in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– CFI 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 France 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.
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For CFI digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. CFI 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– CFI is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of CFI in Real Estate Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– CFI has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. CFI 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CFI has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CFI 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the CFI 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that CFI 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.
High brand equity
– CFI has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled CFI to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of CFI | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CFI are -
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at CFI 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
CFI 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though CFI has some of the most successful models in the Real Estate Operations industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. CFI should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of CFI is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Real Estate Operations industry, but CFI needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help CFI to focus more on services in the Real Estate Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As CFI 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of France, CFI needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of CFI 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CFI 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. CFI 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, CFI 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 CFI lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, CFI 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Real Estate Operations industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, CFI 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.
CFI Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CFI are -
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. CFI can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 CFI in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now CFI can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for CFI 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects CFI can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– CFI has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for CFI 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 CFI to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for CFI 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.
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. CFI 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. CFI 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– CFI 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, CFI 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 CFI to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. CFI can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, CFI can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that CFI operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CFI has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help CFI to build a more holistic ecosystem for CFI products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats CFI External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CFI are -
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 CFI.
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 CFI in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on CFI 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– CFI 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. CFI can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
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 CFI 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Real Estate Operations industry are lowering. It can presents CFI 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.
Increasing wage structure of CFI
– 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 CFI.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, CFI 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that CFI is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. CFI needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Real Estate Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CFI 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 CFI prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CFI Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CFI 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 CFI 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 CFI 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 CFI 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 CFI needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
