Swot Analysis of "Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version" written by Michael A. Wheeler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Easterly Harbor facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Negotiations and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Easterly Harbor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Easterly Harbor 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Easterly Harbor
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 Easterly Harbor
Strengths Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Easterly Harbor in Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Easterly Harbor has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Easterly Harbor to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Easterly Harbor is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Easterly Harbor in the sector have low bargaining power. Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Easterly Harbor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Easterly Harbor 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 Michael A. Wheeler 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.
Organizational Resilience of Easterly Harbor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Easterly Harbor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Easterly Harbor 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Easterly Harbor has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Easterly Harbor 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.
Training and development
– Easterly Harbor has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Easterly Harbor 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Easterly Harbor in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Easterly Harbor 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Easterly Harbor 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version, in the dynamic environment Easterly Harbor has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Easterly Harbor has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version, is just above the industry average. Easterly Harbor 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Easterly Harbor products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Easterly Harbor needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Easterly Harbor 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Easterly Harbor 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 - Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Easterly Harbor is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Easterly Harbor needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Easterly Harbor to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Easterly Harbor 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Easterly Harbor 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version, it seems that the employees of Easterly Harbor 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Easterly Harbor is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Easterly Harbor 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.
Opportunities Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version | 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Easterly Harbor 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Easterly Harbor 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Easterly Harbor to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Easterly Harbor 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Easterly Harbor 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Easterly Harbor can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Easterly Harbor operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Easterly Harbor 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Easterly Harbor can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Easterly Harbor can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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.
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. Easterly Harbor can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Easterly Harbor 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 Easterly Harbor to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Easterly Harbor 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Easterly Harbor to increase its market reach. Easterly Harbor 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 Easterly Harbor in the consumer business. Now Easterly Harbor can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Easterly Harbor is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Easterly Harbor 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.
Increasing wage structure of Easterly Harbor
– 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 Easterly Harbor.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Easterly Harbor 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.
Environmental challenges
– Easterly Harbor 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. Easterly Harbor can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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 Easterly Harbor.
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. Easterly Harbor 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.
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 Easterly Harbor business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version, Easterly Harbor 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Easterly Harbor with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Easterly Harbor can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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 Salt Harbor: Confidential Information for Easterly, Portuguese Version 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 Easterly Harbor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.