Case Study Description of ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version
The CEO of ServiceMaster Industries has convened an internal task force to come up with ideas for reorganizing the company to accommodate unusually fast growth. In developing both alternatives and criteria for appraising them, the task force has to keep in mind the strong company culture.
Swot Analysis of "ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version" written by James L. Heskett includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Servicemaster Appraising facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture, Reorganization and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Servicemaster Appraising, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Servicemaster Appraising 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Servicemaster Appraising
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 Servicemaster Appraising
Strengths ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Servicemaster Appraising in ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Servicemaster Appraising is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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
– Servicemaster Appraising has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Servicemaster Appraising 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Servicemaster Appraising has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Servicemaster Appraising is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Servicemaster Appraising 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Servicemaster Appraising 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Training and development
– Servicemaster Appraising has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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.
Learning organization
- Servicemaster Appraising 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 Servicemaster Appraising is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Servicemaster Appraising is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Servicemaster Appraising 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 Servicemaster Appraising in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version are -
Need for greater diversity
– Servicemaster Appraising 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, Servicemaster Appraising 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version, it seems that the employees of Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Servicemaster Appraising has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Servicemaster Appraising is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 Servicemaster Appraising has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Servicemaster Appraising 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, James L. Heskett suggests that, Servicemaster Appraising 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 Servicemaster Appraising 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version | 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Servicemaster Appraising 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.
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 Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Servicemaster Appraising 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.
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. Servicemaster Appraising can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Servicemaster Appraising can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Servicemaster Appraising is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Servicemaster Appraising 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Servicemaster Appraising to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Servicemaster Appraising to increase its market reach. Servicemaster Appraising 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Servicemaster Appraising has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Servicemaster Appraising to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version case study. Servicemaster Appraising can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Servicemaster Appraising can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Servicemaster Appraising 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 Servicemaster Appraising business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Servicemaster Appraising
– 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 Servicemaster Appraising.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Servicemaster Appraising can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Servicemaster Appraising 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Servicemaster Appraising with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Servicemaster Appraising 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.
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. Servicemaster Appraising can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Servicemaster Appraising in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Servicemaster Appraising 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 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. Servicemaster Appraising needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 ServiceMaster Industries, Inc., Spanish Version 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 Servicemaster Appraising needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
