The executive committee of SaskTel had recently approved a proposal to launch its LifeState health monitoring system to the Canadian marketplace. The company's senior director of marketing must develop a marketing plan, including distribution and promotion, for the proposed product launch in six months' time. She will have to make decisions quickly in order to present a proposal to the executive committee within two weeks.
Swot Analysis of "SaskTel" written by Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Marsha Watson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sasktel Lifestate facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in SaskTel case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the SaskTel casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in SaskTel case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sasktel Lifestate, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sasktel Lifestate 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 SaskTel can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in SaskTel case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sasktel Lifestate
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 Sasktel Lifestate
Strengths SaskTel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sasktel Lifestate in SaskTel Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Sasktel Lifestate has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sasktel Lifestate to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sasktel Lifestate is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the SaskTel 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
– Sasktel Lifestate has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in SaskTel 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the SaskTel 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
– Sasktel Lifestate is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in SaskTel 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 Sasktel Lifestate
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sasktel Lifestate does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sasktel Lifestate digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sasktel Lifestate 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 SaskTel HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sasktel Lifestate 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 Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sasktel Lifestate 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 SaskTel - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Sasktel Lifestate 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 Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Marsha Watson 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.
Weaknesses SaskTel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SaskTel are -
Need for greater diversity
– Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sasktel Lifestate is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Sasktel Lifestate needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sasktel Lifestate to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Sasktel Lifestate supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - SaskTel, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sasktel Lifestate vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Sasktel Lifestate needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sasktel Lifestate has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sasktel Lifestate is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study SaskTel can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sasktel Lifestate products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sasktel Lifestate needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Marsha Watson suggests that, Sasktel Lifestate 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, Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Opportunities SaskTel | 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 SaskTel are -
Buying journey improvements
– Sasktel Lifestate can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. SaskTel 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sasktel Lifestate is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SaskTel 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sasktel Lifestate 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 SaskTel - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sasktel Lifestate to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sasktel Lifestate 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 Sasktel Lifestate to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Sasktel Lifestate 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. Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sasktel Lifestate can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sasktel Lifestate 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.
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. Sasktel Lifestate can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sasktel Lifestate can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sasktel Lifestate operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sasktel Lifestate 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, SaskTel, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats SaskTel External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study SaskTel are -
Increasing wage structure of Sasktel Lifestate
– 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 Sasktel Lifestate.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sasktel Lifestate has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sasktel Lifestate 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 Sasktel Lifestate with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sasktel Lifestate high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Sasktel Lifestate.
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.
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 Sasktel Lifestate in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study SaskTel, Sasktel Lifestate 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sasktel Lifestate 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.
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. Sasktel Lifestate can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Sasktel Lifestate 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.
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. Sasktel Lifestate 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SaskTel 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 SaskTel 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 SaskTel 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 SaskTel 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 SaskTel 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 Sasktel Lifestate needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.