The manager of a department that operates potentially dangerous equipment used to manufacture and alter highly dangerous gases is facing how to deal with the repercussions from an accident caused by one of his best operators that resulted in contamination of the building. The manager fears that the accident was the result of the operator smoking marijuana on the unsupervised night shift. He has to come to grips with his responsibilities and objectives as a manager and take steps to achieve them based on his knowledge and understanding of the situation.
Swot Analysis of "Particle of Evidence" written by Allan Cohen, David Rothstein includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dangerous Accident facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Particle of Evidence case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Conflict, Human resource management, Leadership, Organizational culture, Organizational structure and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Particle of Evidence casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Particle of Evidence
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Particle of Evidence case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dangerous Accident, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dangerous Accident 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 Particle of Evidence can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Particle of Evidence case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dangerous Accident
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 Dangerous Accident
Strengths Particle of Evidence | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dangerous Accident in Particle of Evidence Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Dangerous Accident has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Particle of Evidence 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Particle of Evidence firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dangerous Accident to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dangerous Accident to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Dangerous Accident has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dangerous Accident to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Dangerous Accident 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 Dangerous Accident is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Particle of Evidence Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Dangerous Accident 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 Allan Cohen, David Rothstein 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.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Dangerous Accident 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 Dangerous Accident in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dangerous Accident in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Particle of Evidence 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Dangerous Accident is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dangerous Accident is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Particle of Evidence case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Innovation driven organization
– Dangerous Accident is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Particle of Evidence Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dangerous Accident 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.
Weaknesses Particle of Evidence | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Particle of Evidence are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Particle of Evidence 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 Dangerous Accident has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dangerous Accident 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dangerous Accident is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Particle of Evidence can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Dangerous Accident supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Particle of Evidence, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dangerous Accident vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dangerous Accident 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Particle of Evidence, is just above the industry average. Dangerous Accident 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Allan Cohen, David Rothstein suggests that, Dangerous Accident 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Dangerous Accident 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Particle of Evidence HBR case study mentions - Dangerous Accident 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Particle of Evidence, 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dangerous Accident 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. Dangerous Accident 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.
Opportunities Particle of Evidence | 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 Particle of Evidence are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dangerous Accident 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
– Dangerous Accident can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Particle of Evidence 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 Dangerous Accident 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 Dangerous Accident to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dangerous Accident 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 Particle of Evidence - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dangerous Accident to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dangerous Accident 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.
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. Dangerous Accident 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 Dangerous Accident can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Dangerous Accident can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Dangerous Accident in the consumer business. Now Dangerous Accident can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Dangerous Accident 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. Dangerous Accident 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Dangerous Accident 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dangerous Accident is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Particle of Evidence case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 Dangerous Accident 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.
Threats Particle of Evidence External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Particle of Evidence are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dangerous Accident 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dangerous Accident 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 Particle of Evidence .
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. Dangerous Accident can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dangerous Accident has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dangerous Accident 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
– Dangerous Accident 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. Dangerous Accident can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dangerous Accident 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 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. Dangerous Accident needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Dangerous Accident business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dangerous Accident high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
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 Dangerous Accident in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Dangerous Accident 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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Dangerous Accident.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Particle of Evidence 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 Particle of Evidence 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 Particle of Evidence 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 Particle of Evidence 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 Particle of Evidence 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 Dangerous Accident needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.