Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion
Blinds To Go is a manufacturer and retailer of customized window coverings. The company has been steadily expanding the number of stores across North America. The vice-chairman is concerned with the lack of staff in some of these newly expanded stores. With plans of an initial public offering within the next two years, senior management must determine what changes need to be made to the recruitment strategy and how to develop staff that will help them achieve the company's growth objectives.
Authors :: Fernando Olivera, Ann C. Frost, Ken Mark
Swot Analysis of "Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion" written by Fernando Olivera, Ann C. Frost, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Blinds Coverings facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IPO, Organizational culture, Strategy execution, Talent management and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blinds Coverings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blinds Coverings
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 Blinds Coverings
Strengths Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blinds Coverings in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Blinds Coverings 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)
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Blinds Coverings 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Blinds Coverings is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Blinds Coverings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Blinds Coverings 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.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds Coverings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Blinds Coverings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Blinds Coverings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Blinds Coverings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blinds Coverings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Blinds Coverings is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Fernando Olivera, Ann C. Frost, Ken Mark can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Innovation driven organization
– Blinds Coverings is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blinds Coverings 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Blinds Coverings in the sector have low bargaining power. Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Blinds Coverings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, is just above the industry average. Blinds Coverings 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Blinds Coverings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Blinds Coverings 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. Blinds Coverings 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Blinds Coverings 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Blinds Coverings 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds Coverings 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, 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
Blinds Coverings 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion HBR case study mentions - Blinds Coverings 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Blinds Coverings 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Blinds Coverings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Blinds Coverings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion | 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion are -
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 Blinds Coverings in the consumer business. Now Blinds Coverings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Blinds Coverings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Blinds Coverings to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study. Blinds Coverings can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blinds Coverings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Blinds Coverings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds Coverings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Blinds Coverings 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, Blinds Coverings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Blinds Coverings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Blinds Coverings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Blinds Coverings 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. Blinds Coverings 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Blinds Coverings 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blinds Coverings 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Blinds Coverings 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Blinds Coverings 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.
Threats Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion are -
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 Blinds Coverings in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Blinds Coverings high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blinds Coverings 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Blinds Coverings is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Blinds Coverings 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 wage structure of Blinds Coverings
– 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 Blinds Coverings.
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 Blinds Coverings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Blinds Coverings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Blinds Coverings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, Blinds Coverings 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Blinds Coverings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Blinds Coverings 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.
Environmental challenges
– Blinds Coverings 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. Blinds Coverings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds Coverings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
