Swot Analysis of "Massport (D): Looking to the Future" written by Michael A. Roberto includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Massport Supplements facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Massport (D): Looking to the Future case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Government, Leadership, Organizational culture, Organizational structure, Security & privacy and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Massport (D): Looking to the Future casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
technology disruption, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Massport (D): Looking to the Future
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Massport (D): Looking to the Future case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Massport Supplements, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Massport Supplements 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Massport (D): Looking to the Future case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Massport Supplements
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 Massport Supplements
Strengths Massport (D): Looking to the Future | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Massport Supplements in Massport (D): Looking to the Future Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Massport Supplements 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Massport Supplements
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Massport Supplements does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Massport Supplements in the sector have low bargaining power. Massport (D): Looking to the Future has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Massport Supplements to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Massport Supplements 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
– Massport Supplements is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Massport (D): Looking to the Future are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Massport Supplements is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Massport (D): Looking to the Future Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Massport Supplements has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Massport Supplements 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.
Training and development
– Massport Supplements has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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.
Learning organization
- Massport Supplements 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 Massport Supplements is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Massport (D): Looking to the Future Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Massport Supplements is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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.
High brand equity
– Massport Supplements has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Massport Supplements to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Massport Supplements in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Massport (D): Looking to the Future | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Massport (D): Looking to the Future are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Massport (D): Looking to the Future, it seems that the employees of Massport Supplements 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport Supplements has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Massport Supplements 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Massport Supplements products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Massport Supplements 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future, 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Massport (D): Looking to the Future HBR case study mentions - Massport Supplements 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Massport Supplements is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport Supplements 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Massport Supplements 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Massport Supplements 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Massport Supplements 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. Massport Supplements 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future | 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future are -
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 Massport Supplements in the consumer business. Now Massport Supplements can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Massport Supplements can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Massport Supplements 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Massport Supplements has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Massport Supplements to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Massport (D): Looking to the Future case study. Massport Supplements can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Massport Supplements can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Massport Supplements operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Massport Supplements 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Massport Supplements can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Organizational Development segment.
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. Massport Supplements can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Massport Supplements 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Massport Supplements to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Massport Supplements can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Massport Supplements 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Massport Supplements 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Massport Supplements 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.
Threats Massport (D): Looking to the Future External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Massport (D): Looking to the Future are -
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. Massport Supplements can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Massport Supplements 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 Massport Supplements.
Increasing wage structure of Massport Supplements
– 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 Massport Supplements.
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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Massport Supplements has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Massport Supplements 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.
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. Massport Supplements 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 Massport Supplements with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Massport (D): Looking to the Future, Massport Supplements 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 .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Massport Supplements is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Massport Supplements 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. Massport Supplements can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Massport Supplements 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport (D): Looking to the Future 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 Massport Supplements needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
