AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of AT&T: The Dallas Works (B)
Describes the innovative use of a cross-level team as a tool for driving change at a troubled AT&T plant. After the team is disbanded, the case raises questions about the group's achievements, and about how well the organization is positioned to tackle the changes that still lie ahead. Teaching Objective: To raise issues relative to teamwork and empowerment and encourage students to examine what it takes for an organization to embrace long-term, continuous change.
Authors :: Todd D. Jick, Susan Rosegrant, Philip Holland
Swot Analysis of "AT&T: The Dallas Works (B)" written by Todd D. Jick, Susan Rosegrant, Philip Holland includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Disbanded Dallas facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Delegation, Leading teams, Motivating people, Organizational culture and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of AT&T: The Dallas Works (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Disbanded Dallas, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Disbanded Dallas 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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Disbanded Dallas
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 Disbanded Dallas
Strengths AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Disbanded Dallas in AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Disbanded Dallas in the sector have low bargaining power. AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Disbanded Dallas to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Disbanded Dallas 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Disbanded Dallas 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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (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.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Disbanded Dallas digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Disbanded Dallas 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Disbanded Dallas in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Disbanded Dallas is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Disbanded Dallas has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in AT&T: The Dallas Works (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.
Analytics focus
– Disbanded Dallas 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 Todd D. Jick, Susan Rosegrant, Philip Holland 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.
High brand equity
– Disbanded Dallas has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Disbanded Dallas to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Disbanded Dallas is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the AT&T: The Dallas Works (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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Disbanded Dallas 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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Disbanded Dallas 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 - AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Disbanded Dallas is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Disbanded Dallas, firm in the HBR case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Disbanded Dallas supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - AT&T: The Dallas Works (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Disbanded Dallas vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Disbanded Dallas 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (B), it seems that the employees of Disbanded Dallas 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Disbanded Dallas is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Disbanded Dallas 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (B), in the dynamic environment Disbanded Dallas has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Disbanded Dallas has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (B), is just above the industry average. Disbanded Dallas 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) 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 Disbanded Dallas has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Disbanded Dallas 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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Disbanded Dallas to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Disbanded Dallas 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.
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. Disbanded Dallas 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. Disbanded Dallas 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.
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. Disbanded Dallas can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Disbanded Dallas can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Disbanded Dallas 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Disbanded Dallas can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. AT&T: The Dallas Works (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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Disbanded Dallas 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, AT&T: The Dallas Works (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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Disbanded Dallas 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 Disbanded Dallas to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Disbanded Dallas has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Disbanded Dallas to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) case study. Disbanded Dallas can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Disbanded Dallas 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Disbanded Dallas can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Disbanded Dallas to increase its market reach. Disbanded Dallas will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Threats AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (B) are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Disbanded Dallas in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Disbanded Dallas 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.
Environmental challenges
– Disbanded Dallas 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. Disbanded Dallas can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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. Disbanded Dallas can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Disbanded Dallas 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.
Increasing wage structure of Disbanded Dallas
– 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 Disbanded Dallas.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Disbanded Dallas 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Disbanded Dallas has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Disbanded Dallas 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Disbanded Dallas 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Disbanded Dallas 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study AT&T: The Dallas Works (B), Disbanded Dallas 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 AT&T: The Dallas Works (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 Disbanded Dallas needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
