Case Study Description of Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged)
Becton Dickinson's Vacutainer business was largely based in the United States, but in 1980 management determined to grow the business aggressively first in Europe and then Japan. These areas demanded new products that were tailored to local markets. Despite the change in strategy, the resource allocation process continued to allocate development resources to U.S.-targeted products.
Swot Analysis of "Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged)" written by Clayton M. Christensen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Becton Vacutainer facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, International business, Product development, Strategic planning, Strategy execution and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) casestudy better are - – technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Becton Vacutainer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Becton Vacutainer 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Becton Vacutainer
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 Becton Vacutainer
Strengths Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Becton Vacutainer in Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Becton Vacutainer 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Becton Vacutainer is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Becton Vacutainer is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Becton Vacutainer 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 Becton Vacutainer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Becton Vacutainer has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Becton Vacutainer 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 brand equity
– Becton Vacutainer has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Becton Vacutainer to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Becton Vacutainer 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 Becton Vacutainer in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Becton Vacutainer 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.
Training and development
– Becton Vacutainer has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Becton Vacutainer in the sector have low bargaining power. Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Becton Vacutainer to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Becton Vacutainer 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.
Weaknesses Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Becton Vacutainer 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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 Becton Vacutainer has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Becton Vacutainer is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Becton Vacutainer 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, Becton Vacutainer 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged), 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Becton Vacutainer 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. Becton Vacutainer 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) HBR case study mentions - Becton Vacutainer 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged), it seems that the employees of Becton Vacutainer 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Becton Vacutainer products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Becton Vacutainer needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Becton Vacutainer 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.
Opportunities Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) | 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Becton Vacutainer 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Becton Vacutainer to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Becton Vacutainer 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Becton Vacutainer 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. Becton Vacutainer can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Becton Vacutainer 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Becton Vacutainer 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Becton Vacutainer can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Becton Vacutainer 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.
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. Becton Vacutainer can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Becton Vacutainer 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Becton Vacutainer is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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.
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 Becton Vacutainer 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.
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 Becton Vacutainer in the consumer business. Now Becton Vacutainer can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Becton Vacutainer 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. Becton Vacutainer can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Becton Vacutainer.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Becton Vacutainer 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.
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 Becton Vacutainer in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Becton Vacutainer
– 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 Becton Vacutainer.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Becton Vacutainer 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Becton Vacutainer 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Becton Vacutainer 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.
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.
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. Becton Vacutainer needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged), Becton Vacutainer 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Becton Vacutainer 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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 Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged) 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 Becton Vacutainer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
