General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version
Describes the rapid growth of General Electric Plastics for over the last decade to a $5 billion (sales) company. The accompanying organizational transitions are described. The task is to design a marketing organization for the coming decade given the anticipated market changes.
Swot Analysis of "General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version" written by V. Kasturi Rangan, Steven C. Michael includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Plastics Electric facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Product development and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Plastics Electric, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Plastics Electric 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Plastics Electric
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 Plastics Electric
Strengths General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Plastics Electric in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Plastics Electric 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Plastics Electric in the sector have low bargaining power. General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Plastics Electric to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Plastics Electric to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Plastics Electric to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Plastics Electric has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Plastics Electric 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.
Organizational Resilience of Plastics Electric
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Plastics Electric does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Plastics Electric has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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
– Plastics Electric 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 Plastics Electric in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Plastics Electric is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Plastics Electric 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 Plastics Electric 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.
High brand equity
– Plastics Electric has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Plastics Electric to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Plastics Electric 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Plastics Electric 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version HBR case study mentions - Plastics Electric 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version, it seems that the employees of Plastics Electric 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Plastics Electric 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Plastics Electric 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Plastics Electric 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 - General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version, 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Plastics Electric, firm in the HBR case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Plastics Electric products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Plastics Electric needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version, in the dynamic environment Plastics Electric has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Plastics Electric has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Plastics Electric 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.
Opportunities General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version | 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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. Plastics Electric 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. Plastics Electric 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Plastics Electric is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Plastics Electric can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Plastics Electric 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Plastics Electric 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Plastics Electric 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Plastics Electric to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Plastics Electric to increase its market reach. Plastics Electric 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Plastics Electric can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Plastics Electric operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Plastics Electric 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Plastics Electric 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 Plastics Electric to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Plastics Electric can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing 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.
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. Plastics Electric 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 Plastics Electric has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Plastics Electric to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version case study. Plastics Electric can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Plastics Electric 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Plastics Electric 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.
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 Plastics Electric business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Plastics Electric 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. Plastics Electric can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Plastics Electric has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Plastics Electric 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. Plastics Electric 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
– Plastics Electric 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.
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 Plastics Electric.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version, Plastics Electric 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 .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Plastics Electric is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Plastics Electric 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 Plastics Electric needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
