SWOT on "SWOT for Zillow, Inc"

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Financial strength and long-term viability are two of the companies;' greatest strengths, as evidenced by the last fiscal quarter's results (Zillow Investor Relations, 2012). Zillow continues to evolve into an advertising, mortgage brokerage and referral business model, balancing all three business models to optimize revenues and keep costs low (Lantz, 2012). The combining of these three business models and the continual development of products and services in each is propelling the company to record revenue and profit levels (Zillow Investor Relations, 2012).

A second significant strength is the ability of the three business models and their services to significantly increase website and services traffic. The average monthly unique visitors on mobile and Web grew by 11.9M year-over-year to 36.1M in the 3rd quasrter of 2012 (Zillow Investor Relations, 2012). July, 2012 was a record month for the company as well, with 37 million visitors to all sites and services.

The third significant strength is the unique market valuation algorithm that Zillow has created and continues to refine over time. The approach to market valuation fo homes can now be done automatically for entire zip codes and regions in real-time through the use of advanced programming and integration to database systems (Haseeb, 2012). This strength is also setting the foundation for future analytics and data mining products and services that can scale across mortgage companies and large-sale real estate investment trusts who are interested in tracking inflated vs. deflated market prices (Schintler, Istrate, 2011). These advanced analytics and data mining applications continue to improve the quality of information and allow for greater levels of insight into market dynamics as well.

Finally, Zillow has proven to be adept at managing the many opportunities for acquisition early in its life as a business. The acquisition of Buyfolio is a case in point (Zillow Investor Relations, 2012). Buyfolio extends the value of analytics and data on Zillow, as this software platform can track, organize and discuss for-sale listings with agents and private groups of potential purchasers as well. Buyfolio will become part of the Premier Agent Program Zillow sells as a service (Zillow Investor Relations, 2012).

Weaknesses

Scalability and reliability of data have continued to be challenging aspects of the Zillow operations strategy, including the heavy reliance on single-instance servers and… READ MORE