Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics
This is the second of a three-case series. Richard finally decides to return to Sydney to manage the company' Sydney Olympics program and experiences challenges of readjusting back home, both from a personal and a professional perspective. With the company changing its focus from the European to the Asian market and the Olympics program drawing to an end, Richard once again faces an uncertain future.
Swot Analysis of "Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics" written by Sebastian Reiche includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sydney Olympics facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, Personnel policies and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sydney Olympics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sydney Olympics 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 Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sydney Olympics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sydney Olympics
Strengths Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sydney Olympics in Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sydney Olympics 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.
High brand equity
– Sydney Olympics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sydney Olympics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sydney Olympics in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sydney Olympics 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.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sydney Olympics digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sydney Olympics 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sydney Olympics is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics case study 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sydney Olympics
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sydney Olympics does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Sydney Olympics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sydney Olympics has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sydney Olympics has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Training and development
– Sydney Olympics has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sydney Olympics 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 Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Sydney Olympics needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Need for greater diversity
– Sydney Olympics 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sydney Olympics 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sydney Olympics has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics HBR case study mentions - Sydney Olympics takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics, in the dynamic environment Sydney Olympics has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sydney Olympics has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sydney Olympics 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 industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Organizational Development strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sebastian Reiche suggests that, Sydney Olympics 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 industry.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sydney Olympics 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sydney Olympics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Sydney Olympics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sydney Olympics to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics | 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 Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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. Sydney Olympics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Sydney Olympics 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sydney Olympics 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sydney Olympics 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, as suggested in case study, Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sydney Olympics can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sydney Olympics 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 Sydney Olympics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sydney Olympics is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sydney Olympics 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sydney Olympics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sydney Olympics 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. Sydney Olympics 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sydney Olympics to increase its market reach. Sydney Olympics 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sydney Olympics 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sydney Olympics 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 Organizational Development segment.
Threats Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics are -
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.
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 Sydney Olympics in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sydney Olympics 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 Organizational Development industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sydney Olympics 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.
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 Sydney Olympics business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Sydney Olympics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Sydney Olympics.
Environmental challenges
– Sydney Olympics 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. Sydney Olympics can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Increasing wage structure of Sydney Olympics
– 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 Sydney Olympics.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sydney Olympics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sydney Olympics needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics, Sydney Olympics may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sydney Olympics 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 field.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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 Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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 Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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 Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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 Richard Debenham in Vienna (B): Between Velvet Divorce and the Sydney Olympics 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 Sydney Olympics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.