paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning
The director of Planning and Development Services for the City of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, is evaluating various models of regional economic development. He needs to recommend to the Economic Development Committee whether an in-house, arm's-length or blended model would be best for the City of Prince Albert and its surrounding region. He also needs to provide direction on the strategic planning process that should follow the formation of a new regional body. Although the director is optimistic about the possibilities, he knows that some stakeholders perceive the City of Prince Albert as fostering an attitude counter to inclusiveness. Gaining buy-in from these stakeholders is critical to success, regardless of the model he proposes.
Swot Analysis of "paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning" written by Gina Grandy, W. Glenn Rowe includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Albert Prince facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economic development, Strategic planning and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Albert Prince, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Albert Prince 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Albert Prince
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 Albert Prince
Strengths paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Albert Prince in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Albert Prince is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Albert Prince 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 Albert Prince is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Albert Prince in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Albert Prince is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Albert Prince has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Albert Prince is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Albert Prince is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Albert Prince 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.
High brand equity
– Albert Prince has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Albert Prince to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Albert Prince 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 Albert Prince in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Albert Prince 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Albert Prince in the sector have low bargaining power. paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Albert Prince to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Albert Prince 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning, in the dynamic environment Albert Prince has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Albert Prince has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Albert Prince, firm in the HBR case study paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning, it seems that the employees of Albert Prince don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 Albert Prince has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Albert Prince 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Albert Prince 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 - paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 Albert Prince 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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, Albert Prince 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Gina Grandy, W. Glenn Rowe suggests that, Albert Prince 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.
Opportunities paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning | 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Albert Prince 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Albert Prince to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Albert Prince 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Albert Prince 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Albert Prince 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 Albert Prince to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Albert Prince 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Albert Prince is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Albert Prince 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Albert Prince 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, paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Albert Prince can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Albert Prince operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Albert Prince has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Albert Prince to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning case study. Albert Prince can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Albert Prince 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Albert Prince can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Albert Prince can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 Albert Prince in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning, Albert Prince 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 .
Increasing wage structure of Albert Prince
– 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 Albert Prince.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Albert Prince 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Albert Prince with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Albert Prince needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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
– Albert Prince 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. Albert Prince can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Albert Prince 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.
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. Albert Prince can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Albert Prince has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Albert Prince needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Albert Prince is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 paREDI: Regional Economic Development and Strategic Planning 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 Albert Prince needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
