Case Study Description of Lamont Golf Club: What Next?
Lamont, a private golf club, had survived another year, but things weren't like the good old days, when waiting lists to join were long, environmental issues were not front and centre, and outside tournaments as a source of revenue were plentiful. The general manager has to work through a changing environment and the current situation at Lamont to set a new direction for the club. How is the club to grow, given old and new clubs drawing existing and potential members away from Lamont, declining corporate budgets to support golf outings, and competition for charity tournaments and events such as weddings? How could the general manager deliver the expected profits with costs increasing by at least 10 per cent per year?
Swot Analysis of "Lamont Golf Club: What Next?" written by Donald Barclay includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lamont Club facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Lamont Golf Club: What Next? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Lamont Golf Club: What Next? casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lamont Golf Club: What Next?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Lamont Golf Club: What Next? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lamont Club, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lamont Club 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Lamont Golf Club: What Next? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lamont Club
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 Lamont Club
Strengths Lamont Golf Club: What Next? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lamont Club in Lamont Golf Club: What Next? Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lamont Club 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Lamont Club is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Lamont Golf Club: What Next? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Lamont Club 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 Donald Barclay 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lamont Club in the sector have low bargaining power. Lamont Golf Club: What Next? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lamont Club to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lamont Club is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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
- Lamont Club 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 Lamont Club is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Lamont Golf Club: What Next? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Lamont Club 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 Lamont Club 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 Lamont Club 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.
High brand equity
– Lamont Club has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Lamont Club to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Lamont Club is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lamont Club digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lamont Club has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Organizational Resilience of Lamont Club
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lamont Club does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Lamont Golf Club: What Next? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lamont Golf Club: What Next? are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Lamont Club 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lamont Club is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Lamont Golf Club: What Next? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Lamont Golf Club: What Next?, in the dynamic environment Lamont Club has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lamont Club has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lamont Club 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 - Lamont Golf Club: What Next? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lamont Club is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lamont Club 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lamont Club 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lamont Club has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High dependence on 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 Lamont Club supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Lamont Golf Club: What Next?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Lamont Club vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Lamont Golf Club: What Next?, is just above the industry average. Lamont Club 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Lamont Club, firm in the HBR case study Lamont Golf Club: What Next? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Lamont Golf Club: What Next? | 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lamont Club 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.
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. Lamont Club can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Lamont Club can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lamont Club 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lamont Club can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Lamont Club in the consumer business. Now Lamont Club can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lamont Club 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Lamont Club can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Lamont Club operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Lamont Club 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 Lamont Club to increase its market reach. Lamont Club 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Lamont Club 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lamont Club 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 Lamont Club to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lamont Club 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Lamont Golf Club: What Next? are -
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. Lamont Club needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Lamont Club will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Lamont Club can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lamont Club 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 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.
Environmental challenges
– Lamont Club 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. Lamont Club can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lamont Club 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 Lamont Club
– 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 Lamont Club.
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.
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 Lamont Club in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lamont Club is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Lamont Club.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lamont Club 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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 Lamont Golf Club: What Next? 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 Lamont Club needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
