Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B)
Sealed Air Corp.'s CEO and COO are considering what approach they should take to building a seamless corporate culture worldwide. Anticipating continuing growth and expansion, especially outside the United States, they are concerned with preserving and promoting the culture that has been one of the company's key assets. However, their experiences in integrating acquired companies, especially outside the United States, have heightened their awareness of differences among the regional cultures of the world and the challenges they face in maintaining a unified corporate culture.
Swot Analysis of "Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B)" written by Lynn Sharp Paine, Karen H. Wruck includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sealed Culture facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Cross-cultural management, Ethics, Growth strategy, Leadership, Organizational structure and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sealed Culture, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sealed Culture 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sealed Culture
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 Sealed Culture
Strengths Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sealed Culture in Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sealed Culture in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Sealed Culture has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sealed Culture is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sealed Culture 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)
– Sealed Culture 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) - 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
– Sealed Culture has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sealed Culture to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sealed Culture is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sealed Culture in the sector have low bargaining power. Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sealed Culture to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Sealed Culture 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 Sealed Culture in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Sealed Culture
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sealed Culture does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Sealed Culture 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 Sealed Culture is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sealed Culture digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sealed Culture 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.
Weaknesses Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sealed Culture 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 - Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sealed Culture is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sealed Culture 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sealed Culture 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sealed Culture 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sealed Culture 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. Sealed Culture 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sealed Culture products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sealed Culture needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B), 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) HBR case study mentions - Sealed Culture 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B), it seems that the employees of Sealed Culture 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sealed Culture has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Opportunities Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) | 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sealed Culture 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, Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sealed Culture 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sealed Culture to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sealed Culture 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sealed Culture 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sealed Culture can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sealed Culture operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sealed Culture 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sealed Culture 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sealed Culture is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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
– Sealed Culture 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sealed Culture 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sealed Culture 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.
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 Sealed Culture 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sealed Culture 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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 Sealed Culture in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sealed Culture with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sealed Culture is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Sealed Culture 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 Sealed Culture 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.
Environmental challenges
– Sealed Culture 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. Sealed Culture can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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. Sealed Culture needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Sealed Culture 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sealed Culture 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sealed Culture 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
– Sealed Culture 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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 Sealed Air Corp.: Globalization and Corporate Culture (B) 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 Sealed Culture needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.