Case Study Description of Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity
Ryan Snow and his business partner, Peter Pearson, faced challenges related to hyper-growth and maintaining customer satisfaction with regard to building Pacific Cares, a telephone technical support outsourcing company for laboratory and testing equipment. The two executives purchased the company in early 2003. Peter became CEO and Snow took on the role of President and Chairman. After running the company successfully for over two years, they continued to be optimistic about Pacific Cares' growth trajectory. Since they took over, the organization had grown from 30 to 250 employees and revenue had doubled annually during the same time period. While confident of Pacific Cares' prospects, Peter and Ryan also pushed on the question of how much growth the company could productively absorb without sacrificing both quality and customer satisfaction. In their last meeting, the Board requested that the executives develop a 2-year outlook for the business based upon Ryan and Peter's assessment of how fast the company should accelerate. The Directors were primarily focused on whether to continue with the current "steady" growth, which was still considerable, but in line with the historic ramp, or to invest in a more "robust" strategy. The two executives wanted to build a large business as fast as possible and own the market before their competitors did. However, they were also sensitive to the impact on margins and the operational challenges of a stepped up expansion
Swot Analysis of "Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity" written by Bethany Coates, Jim Ellis includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cares Ryan facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity casestudy better are - – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cares Ryan, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cares Ryan 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cares Ryan
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 Cares Ryan
Strengths Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cares Ryan in Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Cares Ryan
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cares Ryan does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cares Ryan 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.
High brand equity
– Cares Ryan has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cares Ryan to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cares Ryan in the sector have low bargaining power. Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cares Ryan to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cares Ryan 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Cares Ryan is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cares Ryan in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Cares Ryan has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Cares Ryan 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 Cares Ryan in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cares Ryan is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Cares Ryan 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 Cares Ryan is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity are -
Need for greater diversity
– Cares Ryan 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cares Ryan is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cares Ryan 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cares Ryan 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. Cares Ryan 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Cares Ryan, firm in the HBR case study Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity HBR case study mentions - Cares Ryan 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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 Cares Ryan 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cares Ryan 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cares Ryan 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity, it seems that the employees of Cares Ryan 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity, is just above the industry average. Cares Ryan 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity | 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cares Ryan 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cares Ryan to increase its market reach. Cares Ryan 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cares Ryan can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Cares Ryan 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cares Ryan can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Cares Ryan can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cares Ryan 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Cares Ryan 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.
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. Cares Ryan can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cares Ryan 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Cares Ryan can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cares Ryan 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 Cares Ryan to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Cares Ryan in the consumer business. Now Cares Ryan can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cares Ryan 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.
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 Cares Ryan in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cares Ryan with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity, Cares Ryan 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 .
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. Cares Ryan can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cares Ryan 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 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. Cares Ryan needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Cares Ryan
– 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 Cares Ryan.
Environmental challenges
– Cares Ryan 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. Cares Ryan can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cares Ryan 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cares Ryan 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cares Ryan is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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 Pacific Cares: Seizing a Market Opportunity 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 Cares Ryan needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.