Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors
The case discusses a conflict over strategy between the Management and Supervisory Board of Stork, a Dutch diversified company active in Aerospace, Food Systems, Technical Services and Prints, and two hedge funds, Centaurus and Paulson, which since 2004 have build a sizeable stake in the company. When an announced delisting and sale to private equity buyers fails , and management announces it intention to stick to a diversified strategy, the hedge funds decide to press the issue of a focus on aerospace. In October 2006 the hedge funds succeed in getting a majority at the AGM for their proposal to focus the company on aerospace. Nevertheless management, supported by its Supervisory Board, continues to consider such a strategy as too risky, and the vote as non-binding. In what had become one of the bitterest disputes of corporate governance in Dutch history, the Entreprise Chamber of the Court of Amsterdam takes the unprecedented step to appoint three "wise men" to the Supervisory Board of Stork, with a deciding vote in matters of strategy. In the meantime, Marel, an Icelandic Food machinery company has also build up a sizeable stake, hoping to be able to improve its chances of buying the Food Systems Division of Stork.
Authors :: Philippe Haspeslagh, Justin Brodie-Smith
Swot Analysis of "Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors" written by Philippe Haspeslagh, Justin Brodie-Smith includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Stork Supervisory facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Stork Supervisory, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Stork Supervisory 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Stork Supervisory
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Stork Supervisory
Strengths Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Stork Supervisory in Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Stork Supervisory has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Stork Supervisory to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Stork Supervisory is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Stork Supervisory 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Stork Supervisory is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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.
Learning organization
- Stork Supervisory 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 Stork Supervisory is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Stork Supervisory in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Stork Supervisory
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Stork Supervisory does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Stork Supervisory 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Stork Supervisory has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Stork Supervisory to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Stork Supervisory to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Stork Supervisory in the sector have low bargaining power. Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Stork Supervisory to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Stork Supervisory 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Stork Supervisory has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Stork Supervisory even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Stork Supervisory 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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 Stork Supervisory has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Stork Supervisory products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Stork Supervisory needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Stork Supervisory 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 - Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Stork Supervisory 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors, in the dynamic environment Stork Supervisory has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Stork Supervisory has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors HBR case study mentions - Stork Supervisory 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Stork Supervisory 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Stork Supervisory is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Stork Supervisory needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Stork Supervisory to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors | 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors are -
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. Stork Supervisory 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, Stork Supervisory 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Stork Supervisory can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Stork Supervisory can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Stork Supervisory 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Stork Supervisory can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Stork Supervisory is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Stork Supervisory 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.
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 Stork Supervisory 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Stork Supervisory has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Stork Supervisory to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors case study. Stork Supervisory can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Stork Supervisory can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Stork Supervisory in the consumer business. Now Stork Supervisory can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Stork Supervisory 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. Stork Supervisory 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Stork Supervisory 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Stork Supervisory in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
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. Stork Supervisory 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Stork Supervisory can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Stork Supervisory 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors, Stork Supervisory may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Stork Supervisory 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.
Increasing wage structure of Stork Supervisory
– 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 Stork Supervisory.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Stork Supervisory is facing in Strategy & Execution 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Stork Supervisory can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors .
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 Stork Supervisory in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Stork Supervisory 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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 Competing Visions of Stork: The Role of Active Investors 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 Stork Supervisory needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
