Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement
In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen ("bullet") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the demands on Tessei continued to grow. Given previous leaders' failed attempts to fix Tessei's problems with increased managerial monitoring and controls, Yabe seeks a creative approach to overcome the motivation, capability, and coordination challenges facing his organization. Like many contemporary leaders, he selects transparency as his tool. He is, however, unique in adopting a highly nuanced approach to implementing transparency. In the process, he not only leads a fantastic organizational turnaround but even helps to make otherwise "dirty" work more meaningful for Tessei front-line employees. The case therefore presents students, particularly in leadership, organizational behavior, operations management, and service operations courses, with an opportunity to think through how a well-crafted transparency strategy can act as a powerful leadership tool.
Swot Analysis of "Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement" written by Ethan S. Bernstein, Ryan W. Buell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tessei Yabe facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Motivating people, Product development, Supply chain, Transparency and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tessei Yabe, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tessei Yabe 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tessei Yabe
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 Tessei Yabe
Strengths Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tessei Yabe in Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tessei Yabe 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
– Tessei Yabe is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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
– Tessei Yabe 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Tessei Yabe 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 Tessei Yabe is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Tessei Yabe is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Tessei Yabe in the sector have low bargaining power. Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tessei Yabe to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tessei Yabe 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tessei Yabe to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tessei Yabe to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Tessei Yabe has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tessei Yabe to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tessei Yabe has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tessei Yabe 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.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Tessei Yabe 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 Tessei Yabe in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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.
Weaknesses Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tessei Yabe 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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 Tessei Yabe 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Tessei Yabe 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement, it seems that the employees of Tessei Yabe 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement, in the dynamic environment Tessei Yabe has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tessei Yabe has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tessei Yabe is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement, is just above the industry average. Tessei Yabe 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tessei Yabe 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. Tessei Yabe 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement, 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ethan S. Bernstein, Ryan W. Buell suggests that, Tessei Yabe 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tessei Yabe 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.
Opportunities Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement | 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement are -
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. Tessei Yabe 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. Tessei Yabe 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tessei Yabe 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tessei Yabe 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tessei Yabe 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tessei Yabe to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tessei Yabe 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tessei Yabe can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tessei Yabe operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tessei Yabe to increase its market reach. Tessei Yabe 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.
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 Tessei Yabe 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Tessei Yabe 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tessei Yabe 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.
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. Tessei Yabe can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tessei Yabe can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Tessei Yabe 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tessei Yabe 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.
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. Tessei Yabe can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tessei Yabe is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Tessei Yabe with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Tessei Yabe 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.
Environmental challenges
– Tessei Yabe 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. Tessei Yabe can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tessei Yabe 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement, Tessei Yabe 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 .
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. Tessei Yabe needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Tessei Yabe
– 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 Tessei Yabe.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tessei Yabe 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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 Trouble at Tessei, Video Supplement 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 Tessei Yabe needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.