Habitat for Humanity Lapeer Restore: SWOT analysis

Page 1: Title
Strategic Plan SWOT Analysis

Habitat for Humanity Lapeer Restore
Page 2: organization description
The Lapeer Habitat For Humanity Restore is a retail store which focuses on the sale of discount household furniture and appliances. The Store acts as good diversification for the Lapeer Habitat for Humanity group because they already get first bids on foreclosed houses with several bank corporations, due to there charity status. So offering appliances gained in the foreclosure but sold separately to go with a house that was purchased and remodeled at cheap prices but sold for market value acts as an excellent means of gaining profit.
The Restore mainly targets low to middle income individuals looking for a bargain on the necessary complimentary goods that come with house and property ownership. The Restore relies on customers having a demand that forces them to come to the store to make their purchase. They acquire the majority of their product from the foreclosure purchases and donations. They hire a mixture of volunteers and paid employees. The Restore lacks the specialization of major furniture and household appliance firms but model their business structure around a low cost model which is easily obtained through Habitat for Humanity’s charity status. The Habitat for Humanity firm as a whole focuses on building houses for the homeless, it has been doing so since 1976. It funds its ventures through stores across the nation like the Restore and the aforementioned foreclosure purchases. The recipients of the house do not receive their housing for free however. They have an affordable payment plan set up based off of their annual income. The profits from these houses are used in turn to build more houses and to pay for the numerous full time employees that work for the organization.
Page 3: Strengths
Charity status allows them to sell products gained in foreclosure.
Volunteers aren’t compensated for their work.
Reduced taxes.
Appliances and furniture are acquired at little to no cost.
Demand is high because they sell to all the people that purchase houses through habitat.
They get a steady influx of other customers thanks to the low prices.
Convenient location on a frequently busy road.
Wide array of products.
Simple business structure.
Church support provides good community advertisement.
Habitat provides a proven business structure through which to run the store.
Page 4: weaknesses
Lack of specialization.
Lack of a consistent quality in products.
Managing a mixture of hired employees and volunteers.
Having to follow a strict set of moral codes and rules.
Non- Guaranteed product supply.
Page 5: Opportunities
The restore and Habitat as a whole would do well to implement a training program similar to the one used by modern fast food industries. It would ensure that the leaders running their assets would be the best qualified for their respective jobs. The company as a whole should make it a requirement that the mangers send in reports of the effectiveness of their business model on a bi-quarterly basis so that adjustments can be made, it is also noteworthy that a degree of freedom and leniency are more than practical in any business. While a stable command structure is important, it is even more so important that intelligent leaders, which the training program would ensure, should be allowed to take initiative without fear of being reprimanded so long as it follows the business standards and moral code, and is justifiable.
Habitat has already covered expansion seeing as that they have restores scattered across the globe, so a logical next step would be to focus on high end retail. Setting up Restores that cater to more lucrative opportunities. Like renovating high end houses or offering remodeling services. No matter what is important to broaden your horizons.
Page 6: Threats
The main threats to the organization don’t lie in competition, they offer the cheapest prices available and with the least sacrifice in product quality at that, but in its own delegation of leadership. They try to encourage individual leadership but force to many unreasonable managerial roles into play. Having too many fingers in one pie creates confusion. Another potential threat is the quality of the companies leaders, if someone publicly commits a act that doesn’t coincide with the companies policies it is severely damaging to the companies reputation, which is probably its most important asset. This is because Habitat’s pristine reputation garners a lot of support and donations. Having been endorsed by billionaires, presidents, and influential people the world over helps provide the company with a good image, which makes people trust the organization their money. If that reputation is tarnished and they in anyway lose these endorsements then they lose a large portion of their income.
Page 7: Plan of action