Case Study Description of SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success
Spinal Cord Injury Ontario is a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Toronto that assists people with spinal cord injuries to achieve independence, self-reliance and full community participation. In early 2014, the marketing manager is trying to understand how best to assess performance against the organization's crucial but hard-to-measure goal of becoming the expert on living with a spinal cord injury in the province of Ontario. In addition, she wishes to develop a reporting system based on the indicators laid out in the existing balanced scorecard. This monthly dashboard will allow the new chief executive officer to manage the organization using a summary sheet of measures that highlights how it is performing on critical dimensions. She faces two crucial questions: How should internal reporting be performed? What would being successful at community leadership look like and how can performance against this goal be monitored?
Swot Analysis of "SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success" written by Neil Bendle includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Spinal Cord facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Spinal Cord, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Spinal Cord 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Spinal Cord
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 Spinal Cord
Strengths SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Spinal Cord in SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Spinal Cord is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Spinal Cord 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 lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Spinal Cord 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 Spinal Cord in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Spinal Cord has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Spinal Cord 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.
Learning organization
- Spinal Cord 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 Spinal Cord is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Spinal Cord 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Spinal Cord 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Spinal Cord
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Spinal Cord does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Spinal Cord to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Spinal Cord to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Spinal Cord 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 Neil Bendle 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Spinal Cord in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success 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.
Weaknesses SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Spinal Cord 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 - SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Spinal Cord 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success, it seems that the employees of Spinal Cord 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Spinal Cord 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Spinal Cord is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Spinal Cord needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Spinal Cord to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success, is just above the industry average. Spinal Cord 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Spinal Cord 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Spinal Cord is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Spinal Cord 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, Spinal Cord 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.
Opportunities SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success | 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Spinal Cord 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Spinal Cord 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Spinal Cord 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Spinal Cord is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Spinal Cord 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 Spinal Cord 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 Spinal Cord can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Spinal Cord 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, SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success, 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. Spinal Cord can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Spinal Cord has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Spinal Cord to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success case study. Spinal Cord 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. Spinal Cord can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Spinal Cord 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Spinal Cord 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.
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. Spinal Cord 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. Spinal Cord 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success are -
Increasing wage structure of Spinal Cord
– 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 Spinal Cord.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Spinal Cord 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Spinal Cord has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Spinal Cord 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success, Spinal Cord 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 .
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. Spinal Cord can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Spinal Cord 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. Spinal Cord 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 Spinal Cord with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Spinal Cord in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Spinal Cord business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Spinal Cord 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Spinal Cord is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Spinal Cord.
Regulatory challenges
– Spinal Cord 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success 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 SCI Ontario: Achieving, Measuring and Communicating Strategic Success 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 Spinal Cord needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.