Case Study Description of Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992
Describes the approach of the German-based multinational company, Siemens Corp., to establishing an identity in the United States. The specific goals for the 1991-92 corporate advertising campaign are described. Examples of print and television messages are included, using the core theme "That was then--This is now." Target audiences are identified, and the program's media, budget, and methods of evaluating the campaign are also described. Acquaints students with the objective and detailed program specifics of corporate advertising campaigns. Examines how a non-U.S. based company seeks to build corporate awareness and identity in the U.S. despite very limited product exposure to consumers.
Swot Analysis of "Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992" written by Stephen A. Greyser, Norman Klein includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Siemens Advertising facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Public relations and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Siemens Advertising, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Siemens Advertising
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 Siemens Advertising
Strengths Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Siemens Advertising in Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Siemens Advertising has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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.
High brand equity
– Siemens Advertising has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Siemens Advertising to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Siemens Advertising is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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.
Analytics focus
– Siemens Advertising 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 Stephen A. Greyser, Norman Klein 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Siemens Advertising is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Siemens Advertising to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Siemens Advertising to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Siemens Advertising in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Siemens Advertising is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Advertising is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Siemens Advertising in the sector have low bargaining power. Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Siemens Advertising to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Siemens Advertising 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Siemens Advertising 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Siemens Advertising 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.
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 Siemens Advertising supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Siemens Advertising vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Siemens Advertising 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992, is just above the industry average. Siemens Advertising 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Siemens Advertising 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Siemens Advertising is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 HBR case study mentions - Siemens Advertising takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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 Siemens Advertising has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 | 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Siemens Advertising 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, Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Siemens Advertising 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Advertising 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.
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. Siemens Advertising 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. Siemens Advertising 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Siemens Advertising 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Siemens Advertising in the consumer business. Now Siemens Advertising can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Siemens Advertising 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Advertising to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Siemens Advertising to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Siemens Advertising 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Siemens Advertising to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Siemens Advertising to increase its market reach. Siemens Advertising 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.
Threats Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 are -
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 Siemens Advertising in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Siemens Advertising can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Siemens Advertising needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992, Siemens Advertising 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
– Siemens Advertising 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Siemens Advertising is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Siemens Advertising 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Siemens Advertising 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
– Siemens Advertising 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Siemens Advertising 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. Siemens Advertising can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Siemens Advertising 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. Siemens Advertising 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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 Siemens Corp. (A): Corporate Advertising for 1992 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 Siemens Advertising needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.