Swot Analysis of "The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership" written by Blake Sutter, Francine Schlosser includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Spitfires Windsor facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership development, Leadership transitions, Leading teams and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Spitfires Windsor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Spitfires Windsor 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 The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Spitfires Windsor
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 Spitfires Windsor
Strengths The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Spitfires Windsor in The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Spitfires Windsor 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Spitfires Windsor 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 The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Spitfires Windsor has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Spitfires Windsor 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Spitfires Windsor is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Spitfires Windsor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Spitfires Windsor 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 Spitfires Windsor 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Spitfires Windsor in the sector have low bargaining power. The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Spitfires Windsor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Spitfires Windsor digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Spitfires Windsor 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Spitfires Windsor to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Spitfires Windsor to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Spitfires Windsor 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 The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Spitfires Windsor 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 The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership, is just above the industry average. Spitfires Windsor 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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 Spitfires Windsor 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Spitfires Windsor 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. Spitfires Windsor 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Spitfires Windsor 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Spitfires Windsor 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Spitfires Windsor is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Spitfires Windsor needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Spitfires Windsor to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Spitfires Windsor 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 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 Spitfires Windsor supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Spitfires Windsor vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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 The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Spitfires Windsor is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Spitfires Windsor, firm in the HBR case study The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Spitfires Windsor 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership | 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Spitfires Windsor 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Spitfires Windsor 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Spitfires Windsor 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Spitfires Windsor 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Spitfires Windsor to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Spitfires Windsor 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. Spitfires Windsor 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Spitfires Windsor can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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.
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 Spitfires Windsor 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Spitfires Windsor 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 Spitfires Windsor to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Spitfires Windsor is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Spitfires Windsor 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Spitfires Windsor can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Spitfires Windsor can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Spitfires Windsor can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership are -
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. Spitfires Windsor needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Spitfires Windsor with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Spitfires Windsor 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.
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. Spitfires Windsor can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Spitfires Windsor 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.
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 Spitfires Windsor business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Spitfires Windsor 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. Spitfires Windsor can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Spitfires Windsor 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Spitfires Windsor is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Spitfires Windsor in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Spitfires Windsor 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Spitfires Windsor 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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 Windsor Spitfires Hockey Team's Journey to the Memorial Cup: A New Era of Leadership 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 Spitfires Windsor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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