Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?
For three years after its spin off from Lucent in late 2000, Avaya struggled with how best to structure its go-to-market organization. Chronicles Avaya's repeated attempts to create an effective go-to-market structure. Ends in late 2003, when Don Peterson, the CEO, must choose between four final options.
Authors :: Mark Leslie, Alexander Tauber, Andrew Tauber
Swot Analysis of "Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?" written by Mark Leslie, Alexander Tauber, Andrew Tauber includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Avaya Avaya's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Reorganization, Strategy and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Avaya Avaya's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Avaya Avaya's
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 Avaya Avaya's
Strengths Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Avaya Avaya's in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya Avaya's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Avaya Avaya's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Avaya Avaya's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Avaya Avaya's 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.
Analytics focus
– Avaya Avaya's 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 Mark Leslie, Alexander Tauber, Andrew Tauber 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 Avaya Avaya's in the sector have low bargaining power. Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Avaya Avaya's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Avaya Avaya's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Avaya Avaya's 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Avaya Avaya's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Avaya Avaya's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? are -
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 Avaya Avaya's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Avaya Avaya's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?, is just above the industry average. Avaya Avaya's 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Avaya Avaya's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Avaya Avaya's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Avaya Avaya's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?, in the dynamic environment Avaya Avaya's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Avaya Avaya's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Avaya Avaya's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Avaya Avaya's has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Avaya Avaya's 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Avaya Avaya's 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. Avaya Avaya's 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Avaya Avaya's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Avaya Avaya's, firm in the HBR case study Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? | 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Avaya Avaya's 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 Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Avaya Avaya's 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. Avaya Avaya's 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Avaya Avaya's 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Avaya Avaya's 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Avaya Avaya's can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing 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 Avaya Avaya's in the consumer business. Now Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya Avaya's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Avaya Avaya's 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.
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. Avaya Avaya's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Avaya Avaya's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Avaya Avaya's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? case study. Avaya Avaya's 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, Avaya Avaya's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Avaya Avaya's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Avaya Avaya's 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, Avaya (A): How to Go to Market?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Avaya Avaya's 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.
Threats Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? are -
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 Avaya Avaya's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Avaya Avaya's 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Avaya Avaya's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Avaya Avaya's 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Avaya Avaya's
– 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 Avaya Avaya's.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Avaya Avaya's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Avaya Avaya's 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.
Environmental challenges
– Avaya Avaya's 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. Avaya Avaya's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Avaya Avaya's 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Avaya Avaya's 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Avaya Avaya's is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Avaya Avaya's.
Regulatory challenges
– Avaya Avaya's 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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 Avaya (A): How to Go to Market? 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 Avaya Avaya's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.