Sunlight Real Estate (435) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Real Estate Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sunlight Real Estate (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sunlight Real Estate is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sunlight Real Estate
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sunlight Real Estate can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sunlight Real Estate, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sunlight Real Estate
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sunlight Real Estate
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sunlight Real Estate
Strengths of Sunlight Real Estate | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sunlight Real Estate are -
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– Sunlight Real Estate is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sunlight Real Estate has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Learning organization
- Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sunlight Real Estate emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sunlight Real Estate is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Sunlight Real Estate
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sunlight Real Estate does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sunlight Real Estate is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided Sunlight Real Estate a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
High brand equity
– Sunlight Real Estate has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sunlight Real Estate to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Sunlight Real Estate 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 Hong Kong 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 Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– Sunlight Real Estate has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sunlight Real Estate to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sunlight Real Estate to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Weaknesses of Sunlight Real Estate | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sunlight Real Estate are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sunlight Real Estate 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. Sunlight Real Estate should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Sunlight Real Estate strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sunlight Real Estate products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sunlight Real Estate needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sunlight Real Estate 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 Hong Kong, Sunlight Real Estate 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.
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 Sunlight Real Estate supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sunlight Real Estate is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sunlight Real Estate vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sunlight Real Estate 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 Hong Kong, Sunlight Real Estate needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Sunlight Real Estate Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sunlight Real Estate are -
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. Sunlight Real Estate can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sunlight Real Estate has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help Sunlight Real Estate to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sunlight Real Estate products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sunlight Real Estate in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Real Estate Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sunlight Real Estate can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sunlight Real Estate operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sunlight Real Estate can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sunlight Real Estate to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sunlight Real Estate to increase its market reach. Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Threats Sunlight Real Estate External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sunlight Real Estate are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Environmental challenges
– Sunlight Real Estate 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. Sunlight Real Estate can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sunlight Real Estate 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 wage structure of Sunlight Real Estate
– 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 Sunlight Real Estate.
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 Sunlight Real Estate business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Real Estate Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sunlight Real Estate 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.
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 Sunlight Real Estate.
Regulatory challenges
– Sunlight Real Estate 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.
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 Sunlight Real Estate in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sunlight Real Estate is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Sunlight Real Estate 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sunlight Real Estate Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate 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 Sunlight Real Estate needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.