SL Green Realty Corp. SWOT Analysis / Matrix

Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by SL Green Realty Corp. managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is a handy technique to evalauate the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) SL Green Realty Corp. is facing in its current business environment.

The SL Green Realty Corp. is one of the leading companies in its industry. SL Green Realty Corp. maintains its dominant position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis.  SWOT analysis an immensenly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.


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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also known as SWOT Matrix.

The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the SL Green Realty Corp. to develop four types of strategies:

• SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
• WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
• ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
•  WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies

SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective

The central purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect SL Green Realty Corp. strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.

Step by Step Guide to SL Green Realty Corp. SWOT Analysis

Strengths of SL Green Realty Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors

As one of the leading companies in its industry, SL Green Realty Corp. has numerous strengths that enable it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of SL Green Realty Corp. are –

Read - SL Green Realty Corp. Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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• Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. SL Green Realty Corp. is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
• Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
• Strong Free Cash Flow – SL Green Realty Corp. has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
• Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to SL Green Realty Corp. products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
• Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
• Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – SL Green Realty Corp. is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
• Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
• Reliable suppliers – It has a strong base of reliable supplier of raw material thus enabling the company to overcome any supply chain bottlenecks.

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Weakness of SL Green Realty Corp. – Internal Strategic Factors

Weakness are the areas where SL Green Realty Corp. can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a company can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.

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• Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
• Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of SL Green Realty Corp.
• The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
• Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though SL Green Realty Corp. is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
• Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though SL Green Realty Corp. is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
• Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
• Not very good at product demand forecasting leading to higher rate of missed opportunities compare to its competitors. One of the reason why the days inventory is high compare to its competitors is that SL Green Realty Corp. is not very good at demand forecasting thus end up keeping higher inventory both in-house and in channel.

Opportunities for SL Green Realty Corp. – External Strategic Factors

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• The new technology provides an opportunity to SL Green Realty Corp. to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
• Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of SL Green Realty Corp..
• Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
• The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable SL Green Realty Corp. to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
• New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for SL Green Realty Corp.. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
• Stable free cash flow provides opportunities to invest in adjacent product segments. With more cash in bank the company can invest in new technologies as well as in new products segments. This should open a window of opportunity for SL Green Realty Corp. in other product categories.
• The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as SL Green Realty Corp. to increase its profitability.
• Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for SL Green Realty Corp. to capture new customers and increase its market share.

Threats SL Green Realty Corp. Facing - External Strategic Factors

• Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
• The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
• Liability laws in different countries are different and SL Green Realty Corp. may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
• Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for SL Green Realty Corp.   in those markets.
• Changing consumer buying behavior from online channel could be a threat to the existing physical infrastructure driven supply chain model.
• As the company is operating in numerous countries it is exposed to currency fluctuations especially given the volatile political climate in number of markets across the world.
• Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of SL Green Realty Corp.
• Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.

Limitations of SWOT Analysis for SL Green Realty Corp.

Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.

• Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
• SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
• The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of SL Green Realty Corp.
• SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
• SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of SL Green Realty Corp.

In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.

This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis SL Green Realty Corp. managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.

Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of SL Green Realty Corp.

This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.

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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis

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SWOT Worksheet & Template

If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.

References / Citations & Bibliography

• M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
• A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
• O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
• L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
• R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)