Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A)
Quack.com was in dire straits. An early entrant in the voice portal market, Quack was quickly running out of money. The company's management team had just returned from a road show for a second round of venture financing, but they had been unsuccessful. To exacerbate this issue, Quack's two major competitors had each received substantial funding. At the current burn rate, Quack could survive on its bridge financing for only three more months. Moreover, after the first few months of running the voice portal, Quack's business-to-consumer model for voice portals was already showing signs of weakness. Quack's management believed the failure of its road show could be related to its B2C focus. The company was facing many major decisions that would reshape and dictate the future of the firm. This case deals with the possible options for new strategic direction.
Authors :: Kenneth G. Hardy, Amy J. Hillman, Benji Shomair
Swot Analysis of "Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A)" written by Kenneth G. Hardy, Amy J. Hillman, Benji Shomair includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Quack's Quack facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Joint ventures, Marketing, Organizational culture, Venture capital and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Quack's Quack, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Quack's Quack 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Quack's Quack
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 Quack's Quack
Strengths Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Quack's Quack in Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Quack's Quack is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Quack's Quack 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Quack's Quack digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Quack's Quack 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Quack's Quack is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Quack's Quack 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Quack's Quack has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Quack's Quack 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Quack's Quack in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Quack's Quack has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Quack's Quack to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Quack's Quack 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Quack's Quack
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Quack's Quack does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Quack's Quack 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 Quack's Quack is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Quack's Quack is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A), in the dynamic environment Quack's Quack has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Quack's Quack has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Quack's Quack supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Quack's Quack vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Quack's Quack 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Quack's Quack is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A), is just above the industry average. Quack's Quack 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 Quack's Quack products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Quack's Quack needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Quack's Quack is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Quack's Quack needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Quack's Quack to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Quack's Quack 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Quack's Quack 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 - Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Quack's Quack 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) | 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Quack's Quack 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Quack's Quack can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Quack's Quack 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, Quack's Quack can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Quack's Quack operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Quack's Quack 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Quack's Quack 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Quack's Quack can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Quack's Quack can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
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 Quack's Quack 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Quack's Quack 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Quack's Quack 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 Quack's Quack to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Quack's Quack can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Quack's Quack has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Quack's Quack to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) case study. Quack's Quack can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Quack's Quack to increase its market reach. Quack's Quack 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.
Threats Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Quack's Quack with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Quack's Quack 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.
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.
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. Quack's Quack 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A), Quack's Quack 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 .
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. Quack's Quack 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Quack's Quack 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Quack's Quack 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.
Increasing wage structure of Quack's Quack
– 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 Quack's Quack.
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 Quack's Quack.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Quack's Quack has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Quack's Quack 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.
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 Quack's Quack business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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 Strategic Direction at Quack.com (A) 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 Quack's Quack needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.