Manuel Tertuliano, head coach of a professional soccer club, must make some difficult decisions about the compensation of six of his players. Specifically, he must decide how to allocate $850,000 among these six players in a way that will benefit his team, which has just finished second to last in the league and faces being eliminated from the league if team performance and game attendance don't improve. Tertuliano realizes that compensation is a key tool in motivating his players. In deciding on these six players' compensation, Tertuliano must ensure that he not only recognizes them, but also the other players on the team for the value each individual contributes to the team.
Authors :: Thomas J. DeLong, David L. Ager, Scott Baldwin, Chris Strong
Topics :: Organizational Development
Tags :: Compensation, Decision making, Human resource management, Leading teams, Motivating people, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "Ottawa Voyageurs" written by Thomas J. DeLong, David L. Ager, Scott Baldwin, Chris Strong includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tertuliano Players facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Ottawa Voyageurs case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Compensation, Decision making, Human resource management, Leading teams, Motivating people and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Ottawa Voyageurs casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Ottawa Voyageurs case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tertuliano Players, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tertuliano Players 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 Ottawa Voyageurs can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Ottawa Voyageurs case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tertuliano Players
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 Tertuliano Players
Strengths Ottawa Voyageurs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tertuliano Players in Ottawa Voyageurs Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Tertuliano Players in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tertuliano Players is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Ottawa Voyageurs are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tertuliano Players 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tertuliano Players has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tertuliano Players 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Ottawa Voyageurs 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.
Training and development
– Tertuliano Players has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Ottawa Voyageurs Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Ottawa Voyageurs firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tertuliano Players to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tertuliano Players to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tertuliano Players 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 Ottawa Voyageurs - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Tertuliano Players is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Tertuliano Players is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Ottawa Voyageurs Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Tertuliano Players is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Thomas J. DeLong, David L. Ager, Scott Baldwin, Chris Strong can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Tertuliano Players in the sector have low bargaining power. Ottawa Voyageurs has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tertuliano Players to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Ottawa Voyageurs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ottawa Voyageurs are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Ottawa Voyageurs, 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, Tertuliano Players 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Ottawa Voyageurs, in the dynamic environment Tertuliano Players has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tertuliano Players has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Tertuliano Players 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Ottawa Voyageurs, is just above the industry average. Tertuliano Players 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Tertuliano Players has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Tertuliano Players 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Ottawa Voyageurs can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tertuliano Players is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tertuliano Players 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. Tertuliano Players 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Thomas J. DeLong, David L. Ager, Scott Baldwin, Chris Strong suggests that, Tertuliano Players is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Tertuliano Players 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.
Opportunities Ottawa Voyageurs | 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 Ottawa Voyageurs are -
Manufacturing automation
– Tertuliano Players 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Tertuliano Players 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tertuliano Players can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Ottawa Voyageurs 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tertuliano Players 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tertuliano Players 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 Tertuliano Players to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tertuliano Players can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tertuliano Players 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 Tertuliano Players 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tertuliano Players 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 Tertuliano Players 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Tertuliano Players 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.
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 Tertuliano Players in the consumer business. Now Tertuliano Players can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tertuliano Players 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 Ottawa Voyageurs - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tertuliano Players to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tertuliano Players 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.
Threats Ottawa Voyageurs External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Ottawa Voyageurs are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tertuliano Players has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tertuliano Players 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.
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 Tertuliano Players in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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 Tertuliano Players business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Tertuliano Players 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. Tertuliano Players can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tertuliano Players is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tertuliano Players 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
– Tertuliano Players 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tertuliano Players 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 Ottawa Voyageurs .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tertuliano Players 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 Tertuliano Players.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tertuliano Players 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 Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Ottawa Voyageurs 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 Tertuliano Players needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
