The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance
This case describes the everyday decisions made by an alliance team. The case focuses on a budgetary decision where the two parties are $100 million apart, and describes the prior decisions of which each partner is clearly aware. Weighing partnership needs against individual company needs is one of the critical concerns manifested.
Swot Analysis of "The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance" written by Lynn Isabella includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Everyday Xtrican facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Decision making, Joint ventures and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Everyday Xtrican, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Everyday Xtrican 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Everyday Xtrican
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 Everyday Xtrican
Strengths The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Everyday Xtrican in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Everyday Xtrican
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Everyday Xtrican does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Everyday Xtrican digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Everyday Xtrican 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Everyday Xtrican is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Everyday Xtrican 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Everyday Xtrican 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance - 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
– Everyday Xtrican has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Everyday Xtrican to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Everyday Xtrican to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Everyday Xtrican to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Everyday Xtrican 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 Lynn Isabella 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.
Learning organization
- Everyday Xtrican is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Everyday Xtrican is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Everyday Xtrican 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Everyday Xtrican has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Everyday Xtrican 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Everyday Xtrican is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Everyday Xtrican 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Everyday Xtrican is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Everyday Xtrican needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Everyday Xtrican to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Everyday Xtrican has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Everyday Xtrican even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance, it seems that the employees of Everyday Xtrican 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.
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 Everyday Xtrican supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Everyday Xtrican vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Everyday Xtrican products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Everyday Xtrican needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance HBR case study mentions - Everyday Xtrican 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Everyday Xtrican 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Everyday Xtrican is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance, in the dynamic environment Everyday Xtrican has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Everyday Xtrican has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance, 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.
Opportunities The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance | 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Everyday Xtrican can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Everyday Xtrican operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
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. Everyday Xtrican can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Everyday Xtrican 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, Everyday Xtrican 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, The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Everyday Xtrican 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 Everyday Xtrican to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Everyday Xtrican in the consumer business. Now Everyday Xtrican can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Everyday Xtrican 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Everyday Xtrican to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Everyday Xtrican can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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.
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. Everyday Xtrican can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Everyday Xtrican to increase its market reach. Everyday Xtrican 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Everyday Xtrican 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Everyday Xtrican has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Everyday Xtrican to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance case study. Everyday Xtrican can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Everyday Xtrican 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.
Threats The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance are -
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 Everyday Xtrican in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance, Everyday Xtrican 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Everyday Xtrican in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Everyday Xtrican 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Everyday Xtrican demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
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 Everyday Xtrican.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Everyday Xtrican is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Everyday Xtrican
– 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 Everyday Xtrican.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Everyday Xtrican can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance .
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.
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 Everyday Xtrican business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Everyday Xtrican 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Everyday Xtrican has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Everyday Xtrican 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 Everyday Xtrican needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
