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 energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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.
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.
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 -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Plastics Electric 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.
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.
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.
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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Plastics Electric 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study General Electric Plastics: Organizing the Marketing Function, Spanish Version 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 Plastics Electric 's lucrative customers.
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 -
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.
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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Plastics Electric to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
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.
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.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Plastics Electric 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Plastics Electric can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.