Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion
Blinds To Go is a manufacturer and retailer of customized window coverings. The company has been steadily expanding the number of stores across North America. The vice-chairman is concerned with the lack of staff in some of these newly expanded stores. With plans of an initial public offering within the next two years, senior management must determine what changes need to be made to the recruitment strategy and how to develop staff that will help them achieve the company's growth objectives.
Authors :: Fernando Olivera, Ann C. Frost, Ken Mark
Swot Analysis of "Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion" written by Fernando Olivera, Ann C. Frost, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Blinds Coverings facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IPO, Organizational culture, Strategy execution, Talent management and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Blinds Coverings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Blinds Coverings
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 Blinds Coverings
Strengths Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Blinds Coverings in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Blinds Coverings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Blinds Coverings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds Coverings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Blinds Coverings in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Blinds Coverings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Blinds Coverings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Blinds Coverings 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
– Blinds Coverings is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Blinds Coverings is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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.
Organizational Resilience of Blinds Coverings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Blinds Coverings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Blinds Coverings 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.
Weaknesses Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Blinds Coverings 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 - Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Blinds Coverings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High 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 Blinds Coverings supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Blinds Coverings vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, in the dynamic environment Blinds Coverings has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Blinds Coverings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, is just above the industry average. Blinds Coverings needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion HBR case study mentions - Blinds Coverings 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Blinds Coverings 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Blinds Coverings 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds Coverings 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Blinds Coverings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion | 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Blinds Coverings 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Blinds Coverings 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Blinds Coverings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Blinds Coverings to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion case study. Blinds Coverings can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Blinds Coverings can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Blinds Coverings 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. Blinds Coverings 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. Blinds Coverings 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.
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 Blinds Coverings 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Blinds Coverings to increase its market reach. Blinds Coverings 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Blinds Coverings 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Blinds Coverings 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, Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, 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. Blinds Coverings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds Coverings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Blinds Coverings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion are -
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion, Blinds Coverings 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Blinds Coverings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Blinds Coverings.
Regulatory challenges
– Blinds Coverings 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.
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. Blinds Coverings 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.
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 Blinds Coverings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Blinds Coverings 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Blinds Coverings 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.
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. Blinds Coverings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Blinds Coverings in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Blinds Coverings 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds To Go: Staffing a Retail Expansion 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 Blinds Coverings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.