The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums

By operating in war zones, urban slums, and deep rural areas, companies could not only achieve growth and profits, but could also improve the economic and social conditions of these impoverished regions. Yet how can a company operate in areas with unstable security, poor infrastructure, and little or no formal legal frameworks in place? To do so successfully, companies need to go beyond transactional alliances or legalistic business partnerships with local partners. Instead, they need to develop community buy-in and long-term personal relationships based on trust with "unorthodox" local inhabitants-the ones offering them security and protection rather than technology and business assets. Such deep social embeddedness is not cost-free. To prevent it from derailing their success, companies need to nurture and grow their local partners beyond their specific needs.

Authors :: Jamie Anderson, Constantinos C. Markides, Martin Kupp

Topics :: Organizational Development

Tags :: Emerging markets, Growth strategy, Joint ventures, Public relations, Social responsibility, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums" written by Jamie Anderson, Constantinos C. Markides, Martin Kupp includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Slums Deep facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Growth strategy, Joint ventures, Public relations, Social responsibility and Organizational Development.

Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Slums Deep, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Slums Deep 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Slums Deep
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 Slums Deep

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Strengths The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Slums Deep in The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums Harvard Business Review case study are -

Diverse revenue streams

– Slums Deep is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Slums Deep 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry

– The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Slums Deep to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Slums Deep to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Slums Deep is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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.

Learning organization

- Slums Deep 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 Slums Deep is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field

– Slums Deep 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 Slums Deep in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Slums Deep in the sector have low bargaining power. The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Slums Deep to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Innovation driven organization

– Slums Deep is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Slums Deep digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Slums Deep 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.

High brand equity

– Slums Deep has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Slums Deep to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Slums Deep 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.

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Weaknesses The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums are -

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 Slums Deep supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Slums Deep vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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 Slums Deep has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Lack of clear differentiation of Slums Deep products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Slums Deep needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

No frontier risks strategy

– After analyzing the HBR case study The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums, 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Slums Deep 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Slums Deep 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 - The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Slums Deep is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Slums Deep needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Slums Deep to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums HBR case study mentions - Slums Deep 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Slums Deep needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Slums Deep 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Slums Deep 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.

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Opportunities The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums | 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 The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums are -

Loyalty marketing

– Slums Deep 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Slums Deep to increase its market reach. Slums Deep 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Slums Deep can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Slums Deep operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.

Buying journey improvements

– Slums Deep can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Slums Deep 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Slums Deep can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Slums Deep 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Slums Deep 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 The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Slums Deep to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Slums Deep has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Slums Deep to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums case study. Slums Deep can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Developing new processes and practices

– Slums Deep 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Slums Deep is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Slums Deep 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.

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 Slums Deep 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.

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Threats The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums are -

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. Slums Deep 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Slums Deep 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 The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums .

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Slums Deep 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

– Slums Deep 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.

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.

Environmental challenges

– Slums Deep 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. Slums Deep can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.

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 Slums Deep in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Increasing wage structure of Slums Deep

– 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 Slums Deep.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Slums Deep 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 Slums Deep is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Slums Deep 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.

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 Slums Deep.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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 The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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 The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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 The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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 The Last Frontier: Market Creation in Conflict Zones, Deep Rural Areas, and Urban Slums 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 Slums Deep needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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