Case Study Description of Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture
Computer Power Group (CPG), an Australian-based consulting, education, and staffing placement firm in the IT industry, is contemplating a brand architecture capable of structuring its eight branded business units. CEO Peter James is particularly curious about whether a corporate brand is needed to unify the businesses. Extensive consumer research is conducted to inform the branding initiative, providing insight into the meanings of each of the sub-brands in key stakeholders' minds. The architecture solution must consider not only brand meanings and associations, but market performance and brand stewardship concerns as well. A pending merger with U.S.-based Interim Technology further complicates the task.
Swot Analysis of "Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture" written by Susan Fournier, Andrea Wojnicki includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Meanings Architecture facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational structure, Research & development and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Meanings Architecture, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Meanings Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Meanings Architecture
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Meanings Architecture
Strengths Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Meanings Architecture in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Meanings Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Meanings Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Meanings Architecture has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Meanings Architecture has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Meanings Architecture 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Meanings Architecture 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 Meanings Architecture in the sector have low bargaining power. Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Meanings Architecture to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Meanings Architecture has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Meanings Architecture to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Meanings Architecture to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Meanings Architecture to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Meanings Architecture 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 Susan Fournier, Andrea Wojnicki 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Meanings Architecture is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Meanings Architecture 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 Meanings Architecture is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Meanings Architecture is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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.
Weaknesses Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture, it seems that the employees of Meanings Architecture 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture, in the dynamic environment Meanings Architecture has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Meanings Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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 Meanings Architecture 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Meanings Architecture has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Meanings Architecture 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture HBR case study mentions - Meanings Architecture takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Meanings Architecture 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Meanings Architecture, firm in the HBR case study Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Meanings Architecture 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Meanings Architecture 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Meanings Architecture is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture | 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Meanings Architecture 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. Meanings Architecture 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Meanings Architecture in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Meanings Architecture 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
– Meanings Architecture 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Meanings Architecture 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Meanings Architecture 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
– Meanings Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Meanings Architecture to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Meanings Architecture 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 Sales & Marketing segment.
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. Meanings Architecture can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Meanings Architecture 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 Meanings Architecture to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Meanings Architecture 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Meanings Architecture is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Meanings Architecture can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture are -
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 Meanings Architecture in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture, Meanings Architecture may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Regulatory challenges
– Meanings Architecture 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 Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Meanings Architecture 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Meanings Architecture can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Meanings Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Meanings Architecture is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Meanings Architecture
– 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 Meanings Architecture.
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 Meanings Architecture business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Meanings Architecture has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Meanings Architecture needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing 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.
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.
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. Meanings Architecture needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Meanings Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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 Computer Power Group: Designing Brand Architecture 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 Meanings Architecture needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
