Case Study Description of Daka International, Inc. (A)
Deals with an employee who contracts AIDS. The employer, a food-service proprietor, is threatened by an old and valued client with the loss of the account if they do not fire him.
Swot Analysis of "Daka International, Inc. (A)" written by Robert J. Robinson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Daka Proprietor facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Daka International, Inc. (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Firing, Health, Negotiations, Personnel policies and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Daka International, Inc. (A) casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Daka International, Inc. (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Daka International, Inc. (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Daka Proprietor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Daka Proprietor 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Daka International, Inc. (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Daka Proprietor
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 Daka Proprietor
Strengths Daka International, Inc. (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Daka Proprietor in Daka International, Inc. (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Daka Proprietor is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Daka Proprietor in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Daka Proprietor in the sector have low bargaining power. Daka International, Inc. (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Daka Proprietor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Daka Proprietor has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Daka Proprietor 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Daka International, Inc. (A) 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Daka International, Inc. (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Daka Proprietor to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Daka Proprietor to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Daka Proprietor has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Daka International, Inc. (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Daka Proprietor has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Daka Proprietor to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Daka Proprietor 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
– Daka Proprietor is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Daka Proprietor is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Daka International, Inc. (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Daka Proprietor has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Daka International, Inc. (A) 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.
Organizational Resilience of Daka Proprietor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Daka Proprietor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Daka International, Inc. (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Daka International, Inc. (A) are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Daka International, Inc. (A) 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Daka Proprietor is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Daka Proprietor 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 - Daka International, Inc. (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Daka International, Inc. (A) 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 Daka Proprietor 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Daka Proprietor 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Daka Proprietor 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 Daka Proprietor supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Daka International, Inc. (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Daka Proprietor vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Daka Proprietor products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Daka Proprietor needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Daka Proprietor has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Daka International, Inc. (A), 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Daka International, Inc. (A), is just above the industry average. Daka Proprietor 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Daka Proprietor 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.
Opportunities Daka International, Inc. (A) | 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Daka Proprietor 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 Daka Proprietor can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Daka Proprietor 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Daka Proprietor can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Daka International, Inc. (A) suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
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. Daka Proprietor 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. Daka Proprietor 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Daka Proprietor can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Daka Proprietor in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Daka Proprietor 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, Daka International, Inc. (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Daka Proprietor 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Daka Proprietor can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Daka Proprietor has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Daka International, Inc. (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Daka Proprietor to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Daka Proprietor is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Daka International, Inc. (A) 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Daka Proprietor 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Daka International, Inc. (A) are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Daka Proprietor has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Daka Proprietor 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Daka Proprietor 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.
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. Daka Proprietor needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Daka International, Inc. (A), Daka Proprietor 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 .
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. Daka Proprietor 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
– Daka Proprietor 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.
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.
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 Daka Proprietor.
Environmental challenges
– Daka Proprietor 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. Daka Proprietor can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Increasing wage structure of Daka Proprietor
– 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 Daka Proprietor.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Daka Proprietor 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.
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 Daka Proprietor in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Daka Proprietor with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Daka International, Inc. (A) 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) 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 Daka International, Inc. (A) 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 Daka Proprietor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.