Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance
Provides an integrated framework for creating customer value and managing the firm profitably. Focuses on the use of product/service line management and effective customer service to achieve customer satisfaction and high profitability.
Swot Analysis of "Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance" written by Benson P. Shapiro includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Customer Extracting facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Developing employees, Marketing, Pricing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Customer Extracting, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Customer Extracting 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Customer Extracting
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 Customer Extracting
Strengths Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Customer Extracting in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Customer Extracting has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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.
Learning organization
- Customer Extracting 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 Customer Extracting is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Customer Extracting is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Customer Extracting is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Customer Extracting is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Customer Extracting
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Customer Extracting does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Customer Extracting 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Customer Extracting 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Customer Extracting in the sector have low bargaining power. Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Customer Extracting to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Customer Extracting is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– Customer Extracting has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Customer Extracting to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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 Customer Extracting 's lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Customer Extracting 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance, is just above the industry average. Customer Extracting 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Customer Extracting is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Customer Extracting is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Customer Extracting needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Customer Extracting to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Customer Extracting 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Customer Extracting, firm in the HBR case study Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Customer Extracting 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. Customer Extracting 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance HBR case study mentions - Customer Extracting 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Customer Extracting 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Customer Extracting is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance | 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Customer Extracting 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Customer Extracting 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 Customer Extracting to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Customer Extracting can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Customer Extracting 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Customer Extracting to increase its market reach. Customer Extracting 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Customer Extracting 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.
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. Customer Extracting can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Customer Extracting 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Customer Extracting to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Customer Extracting 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Customer Extracting 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Customer Extracting 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Customer Extracting 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.
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. Customer Extracting 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. Customer Extracting 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.
Threats Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance are -
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Customer Extracting will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
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 Customer Extracting.
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
– Customer Extracting 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.
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 Customer Extracting in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline 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. Customer Extracting needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Customer Extracting 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Customer Extracting 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Customer Extracting has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Customer Extracting 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.
Increasing wage structure of Customer Extracting
– 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 Customer Extracting.
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. Customer Extracting can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Customer Extracting high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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 Buy Low, Sell High: Creating and Extracting Customer Value by Enhancing Organizational Performance 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 Customer Extracting needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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