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 - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, 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 -
Analytics focus
– Plastics Electric 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 V. Kasturi Rangan, Steven C. Michael 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
– Plastics Electric is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
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.
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.
Learning organization
- Plastics Electric 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 Plastics Electric is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Plastics Electric is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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.
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.
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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Plastics Electric in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Plastics Electric digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Plastics Electric has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
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 -
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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Plastics Electric is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, V. Kasturi Rangan, Steven C. Michael suggests that, Plastics Electric 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.
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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Plastics Electric 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. Plastics Electric 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 Plastics Electric has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Plastics Electric is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Plastics Electric needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Plastics Electric to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version, is just above the industry average. Plastics Electric 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 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 Plastics Electric supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Plastics Electric vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
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 -
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. Plastics Electric can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Plastics Electric 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, General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Plastics Electric in the consumer business. Now Plastics Electric can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Plastics Electric can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 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.
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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Plastics Electric 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
– 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Plastics Electric 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Plastics Electric 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.
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.
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 -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Plastics Electric in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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.
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.
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 Plastics Electric is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Plastics Electric in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Plastics Electric 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.
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 .
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Plastics Electric with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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.
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.