Describes the transformation of this forging and castings company from one in which management style and labor relations reflected the traditional arrangements of the post-World War II steel industry to one in which labor and management partner in the service of a total quality strategy. Describes how KomTek's leadership slowly developed a more trusting relationship with bargaining unit leadership, resulting in a shared effort to solve the problems facing the company.
Swot Analysis of "KomTek (B)" written by Jay Rao, James Hunt, Elaine Landry includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Komtek's Komtek facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in KomTek (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Developing employees, Labor, Leading teams, Motivating people, Organizational culture, Product development and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the KomTek (B) casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in KomTek (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Komtek's Komtek, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Komtek's Komtek 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 KomTek (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in KomTek (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Komtek's Komtek
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 Komtek's Komtek
Strengths KomTek (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Komtek's Komtek in KomTek (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Komtek's Komtek has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in KomTek (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.
Organizational Resilience of Komtek's Komtek
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Komtek's Komtek does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Komtek's Komtek 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 KomTek (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Komtek's Komtek is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the KomTek (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.
Strong track record of project management
– Komtek's Komtek is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Komtek's Komtek in the sector have low bargaining power. KomTek (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Komtek's Komtek to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Komtek's Komtek in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Komtek's Komtek 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.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Komtek's Komtek digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Komtek's Komtek 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the KomTek (B) 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.
High brand equity
– Komtek's Komtek has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Komtek's Komtek to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Komtek's Komtek has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Komtek's Komtek 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.
Weaknesses KomTek (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of KomTek (B) are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Komtek's Komtek 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study KomTek (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 KomTek (B) HBR case study mentions - Komtek's Komtek 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Komtek's Komtek, firm in the HBR case study KomTek (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study KomTek (B) 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 KomTek (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Komtek's Komtek is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jay Rao, James Hunt, Elaine Landry suggests that, Komtek's Komtek is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study KomTek (B), in the dynamic environment Komtek's Komtek has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Komtek's Komtek has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Komtek's Komtek 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Komtek's Komtek is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study KomTek (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 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 Komtek's Komtek supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - KomTek (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Komtek's Komtek vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study KomTek (B), is just above the industry average. Komtek's Komtek 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.
Opportunities KomTek (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 KomTek (B) are -
Buying journey improvements
– Komtek's Komtek can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. KomTek (B) 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Komtek's Komtek to increase its market reach. Komtek's Komtek 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.
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 Komtek's Komtek in the consumer business. Now Komtek's Komtek can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Komtek's Komtek is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. KomTek (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.
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. Komtek's Komtek 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. Komtek's Komtek 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Komtek's Komtek 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 Komtek's Komtek to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Komtek's Komtek 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Komtek's Komtek has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Komtek's Komtek to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the KomTek (B) case study. Komtek's Komtek can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Komtek's Komtek 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.
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 Komtek's Komtek 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Komtek's Komtek 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Komtek's Komtek can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Komtek's Komtek 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 Komtek's Komtek 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.
Threats KomTek (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study KomTek (B) are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Komtek's Komtek 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 KomTek (B) .
Increasing wage structure of Komtek's Komtek
– 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 Komtek's Komtek.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Organizational Development field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Komtek's Komtek can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Komtek's Komtek is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Komtek's Komtek.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Komtek's Komtek 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Komtek's Komtek has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Komtek's Komtek 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Komtek's Komtek 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Komtek's Komtek 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.
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 Komtek's Komtek business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Komtek's Komtek with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Komtek's Komtek 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 KomTek (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 KomTek (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 KomTek (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 KomTek (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 KomTek (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 Komtek's Komtek needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
