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 - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing,
there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, 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 -
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Everyday Xtrican is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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.
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.
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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Everyday Xtrican is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Everyday Xtrican in the sector have low bargaining power. The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Everyday Xtrican to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Everyday Xtrican 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 Everyday Xtrican in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
Training and development
– Everyday Xtrican has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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.
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 -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 Everyday Xtrican has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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 Everyday Xtrican 's lucrative customers.
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.
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.
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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Everyday Xtrican 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Everyday Xtrican 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Everyday Xtrican 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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Everyday Xtrican 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Everyday Xtrican 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.
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.
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. Everyday Xtrican 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. Everyday Xtrican 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Everyday Xtrican is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Xtrican Co-Promotion Team: Everyday Decision Making in a Strategic Alliance 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Everyday Xtrican can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Everyday Xtrican with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Everyday Xtrican 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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.