Case Study Description of Watson Children's Shelter
Watson Children's Shelter (Watson) was a private, independent, charitable non-profit organization located in Missoula, MT, that provided emergency shelter to children. Watson was a licensed emergency care provider, offering a safe, nurturing environment for children who were victims of physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment, or family crisis. Many of the children arriving at the shelter were severely emotionally disturbed or learning disabled. Other children arrived as victims of secondary abuse, coming from situations in which they observed domestic violence, substance or sexual abuse. Watson was founded in 1977 and had been under the leadership of Fran Albrecht since 1997. Albrecht had an excellent reputation as a leader and manager of this non-profit. It was June 2011 when Albrecht was deciding which of three alternatives to recommend to her Board of Directors, as Watson faced a tough operational situation. Watson and its Board had gone through a time-consuming due diligence process that led them to the decision to expand and build an additional facility. Within a year after the second facility was finished, placements of children had decreased dramatically; where Watson had been turning away approximately two children per week, it now had excess capacity in each facility and even had closed one facility part of the time. Albrecht's research into the decreased placements led her to a policy change by the main referring agency-it was now taking a "family preservation" approach rather than referring directly to an emergency provider such as Watson.It was a case of Albrecht and her Board having done lots of due diligence and then being blindsided by a decision made by an external constituent. She was concerned about the public perception and the impact on her organization and the Board members, as well as other stakeholders, including the children. She knew Watson had to adapt and act quickly, but she was not certain which alternative to take
Authors :: Bambi Douma, Jeffrey P. Shay, Michael Harrington
Swot Analysis of "Watson Children's Shelter" written by Bambi Douma, Jeffrey P. Shay, Michael Harrington includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Watson Albrecht facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Watson Children's Shelter case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate governance and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Watson Children's Shelter casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Watson Children's Shelter
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Watson Children's Shelter case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Watson Albrecht, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Watson Albrecht 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 Watson Children's Shelter can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Watson Children's Shelter case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Watson Albrecht
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 Watson Albrecht
Strengths Watson Children's Shelter | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Watson Albrecht in Watson Children's Shelter Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Watson Albrecht 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 Watson Albrecht is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Watson Children's Shelter Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Watson Albrecht is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Watson Children's Shelter Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Watson Albrecht has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Watson Albrecht 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Watson Albrecht 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Watson Albrecht is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Watson Children's Shelter 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Watson Children's Shelter 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.
High brand equity
– Watson Albrecht has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Watson Albrecht to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Watson Albrecht
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Watson Albrecht 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 Strategy & Execution industry
– Watson Children's Shelter firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Watson Albrecht to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Watson Albrecht to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Watson Albrecht has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Watson Children's Shelter 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.
Analytics focus
– Watson Albrecht 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 Bambi Douma, Jeffrey P. Shay, Michael Harrington 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Watson Albrecht 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 Watson Children's Shelter HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Watson Children's Shelter | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Watson Children's Shelter are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Watson Children's Shelter, it seems that the employees of Watson Albrecht 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 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 Watson Albrecht supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Watson Children's Shelter, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Watson Albrecht vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Watson Children's Shelter has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Watson Albrecht 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Watson Albrecht is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Watson Children's Shelter can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Watson Albrecht is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Watson Albrecht needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Watson Albrecht to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Watson Albrecht, firm in the HBR case study Watson Children's Shelter needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Watson Albrecht 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 Watson Albrecht 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 - Watson Children's Shelter should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Bambi Douma, Jeffrey P. Shay, Michael Harrington suggests that, Watson Albrecht 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Watson Children's Shelter, is just above the industry average. Watson Albrecht 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Watson Children's Shelter, 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.
Opportunities Watson Children's Shelter | 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 Watson Children's Shelter are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Watson Albrecht 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 Watson Children's Shelter - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Watson Albrecht to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Watson Albrecht 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Watson Albrecht in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Watson Albrecht has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Watson Albrecht to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Watson Children's Shelter case study. Watson Albrecht can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Watson Albrecht is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Watson Children's Shelter 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Watson Albrecht can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Watson Albrecht 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Watson Albrecht can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Watson Albrecht operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
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 Watson Albrecht 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
– Watson Albrecht 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Watson Albrecht to increase its market reach. Watson Albrecht 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.
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 Watson Albrecht in the consumer business. Now Watson Albrecht can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Watson Albrecht 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.
Threats Watson Children's Shelter External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Watson Children's Shelter are -
Environmental challenges
– Watson Albrecht 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. Watson Albrecht can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Watson Albrecht 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.
Increasing wage structure of Watson Albrecht
– 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 Watson Albrecht.
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.
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 Watson Albrecht business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Watson Albrecht with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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 Watson Albrecht.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Watson Albrecht 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Watson Albrecht 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Watson Albrecht has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Watson Albrecht 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 Watson Albrecht is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Watson Albrecht needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Watson Children's Shelter 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 Watson Children's Shelter 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 Watson Children's Shelter 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 Watson Children's Shelter 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 Watson Children's Shelter 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 Watson Albrecht needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
