Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version
Explains why sales management has become an increasingly important and complex topic for top managers. Demonstrates the financial impact of a superior salesforce and then describes a way to gain superiority. The focus is on a salesforce that is responsive to customer needs and competing imperatives. Organization and management receive careful attention.
Authors :: Benson P. Shapiro, Adrian J. Slywotzky, Stephen X. Doyle
Swot Analysis of "Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version" written by Benson P. Shapiro, Adrian J. Slywotzky, Stephen X. Doyle includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Salesforce Superiority facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational structure, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Salesforce Superiority, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Salesforce Superiority 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Salesforce Superiority
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 Salesforce Superiority
Strengths Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Salesforce Superiority in Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Salesforce Superiority is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Salesforce Superiority has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Salesforce Superiority 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Salesforce Superiority 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Salesforce Superiority 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Salesforce Superiority 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
– Salesforce Superiority 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Salesforce Superiority 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Salesforce Superiority is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Salesforce Superiority has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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
– Salesforce Superiority 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 Salesforce Superiority in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Salesforce Superiority in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Salesforce Superiority 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 - Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version, is just above the industry average. Salesforce Superiority 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version, in the dynamic environment Salesforce Superiority has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Salesforce Superiority has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Salesforce Superiority 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Salesforce Superiority 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Salesforce Superiority has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Salesforce Superiority is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version, it seems that the employees of Salesforce Superiority 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benson P. Shapiro, Adrian J. Slywotzky, Stephen X. Doyle suggests that, Salesforce Superiority 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Salesforce Superiority 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version HBR case study mentions - Salesforce Superiority 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.
Opportunities Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Salesforce Superiority 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Salesforce Superiority 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Salesforce Superiority is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Salesforce Superiority has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Salesforce Superiority to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version case study. Salesforce Superiority 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, Salesforce Superiority 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, Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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.
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. Salesforce Superiority can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Salesforce Superiority 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Salesforce Superiority has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Salesforce Superiority can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Salesforce Superiority 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Salesforce Superiority 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 Salesforce Superiority 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 Salesforce Superiority 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 Salesforce Superiority to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version are -
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. Salesforce Superiority can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, Spanish Version, Salesforce Superiority 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 .
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 Salesforce Superiority in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Salesforce Superiority 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Salesforce Superiority 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.
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 Salesforce Superiority.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Salesforce Superiority is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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
– Salesforce Superiority has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Salesforce Superiority 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.
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. Salesforce Superiority 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.
Increasing wage structure of Salesforce Superiority
– 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 Salesforce Superiority.
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 Salesforce Superiority business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Strategic Sales Management: A Boardroom Issue, 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 Salesforce Superiority needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.