Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike
This series of six cases (labeled A through F) presents the various dilemmas that arose in the spring of 2001 when engineers at the Seattle-based Boeing Company, unhappy with management decisions, contemplated and undertook a strike, the first "white-collar" work stoppage in the history of American business.
Authors :: Pat Werhane, Michael Gorman, Jenny Mead, Mary L Cummings
Swot Analysis of "Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike" written by Pat Werhane, Michael Gorman, Jenny Mead, Mary L Cummings includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Strike Boeing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Labor and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Strike Boeing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Strike Boeing 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 Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Strike Boeing
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Strike Boeing
Strengths Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Strike Boeing in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Strike Boeing 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Strike Boeing is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Strike Boeing in the sector have low bargaining power. Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Strike Boeing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Strike Boeing has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Strike Boeing
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Strike Boeing does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Strike Boeing 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Strike Boeing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Strike Boeing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Strike Boeing 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.
Training and development
– Strike Boeing has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High brand equity
– Strike Boeing has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Strike Boeing to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Strike Boeing 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 industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Pat Werhane, Michael Gorman, Jenny Mead, Mary L Cummings can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Strike Boeing in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike are -
Need for greater diversity
– Strike Boeing 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Strike Boeing is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike, is just above the industry average. Strike Boeing 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike, in the dynamic environment Strike Boeing has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Strike Boeing has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Strike Boeing is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike, it seems that the employees of Strike Boeing 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Strike Boeing 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 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 Strike Boeing supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Strike Boeing vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Strike Boeing 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Strike Boeing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Strike Boeing 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.
Opportunities Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Strike Boeing can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Strike Boeing in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Strike Boeing 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. Strike Boeing 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.
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 Strike Boeing 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Strike Boeing 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Strike Boeing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Strike Boeing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Strike Boeing 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Strike Boeing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Strike Boeing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Strike Boeing to increase its market reach. Strike Boeing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Strike Boeing 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Manufacturing automation
– Strike Boeing can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Developing new processes and practices
– Strike Boeing can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Threats Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Strike Boeing 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Strike Boeing is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Strike Boeing 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. Strike Boeing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Strike Boeing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Strike Boeing needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Strike Boeing 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Strike Boeing 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Strike Boeing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Strike Boeing needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing wage structure of Strike Boeing
– 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 Strike Boeing.
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 Strike Boeing.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Strike Boeing in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike 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 the case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike 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 the Harvard case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike 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 Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (A): To Strike or Not To Strike is 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 Strike Boeing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.