Swot Analysis of "Knight Importers" written by Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Richard H. Mimick, Christopher J. Bridgnell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Importers Proprietor facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Knight Importers case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial analysis and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Knight Importers casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Knight Importers case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Importers Proprietor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Importers Proprietor 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 Knight Importers can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Knight Importers case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Importers Proprietor
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Importers Proprietor
Strengths Knight Importers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Importers Proprietor in Knight Importers Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Importers Proprietor has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Importers Proprietor to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Importers Proprietor 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 Importers Proprietor in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Importers Proprietor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Importers Proprietor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Importers Proprietor in the sector have low bargaining power. Knight Importers has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Importers Proprietor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Importers Proprietor 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Importers Proprietor is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Importers Proprietor digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Importers Proprietor 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.
Analytics focus
– Importers Proprietor 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 Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Richard H. Mimick, Christopher J. Bridgnell 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Importers Proprietor is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Knight Importers 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 Importers Proprietor 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Knight Importers 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.
Learning organization
- Importers Proprietor 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 Importers Proprietor is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Knight Importers Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Knight Importers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Knight Importers are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Knight Importers, in the dynamic environment Importers Proprietor has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Importers Proprietor has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Importers Proprietor is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Importers Proprietor needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Importers Proprietor to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Knight Importers, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Knight Importers, is just above the industry average. Importers Proprietor 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Knight Importers, it seems that the employees of Importers Proprietor 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Importers Proprietor, firm in the HBR case study Knight Importers needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Importers Proprietor 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 - Knight Importers should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Knight Importers 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 Importers Proprietor has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Importers Proprietor supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Knight Importers, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Importers Proprietor vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Importers Proprietor is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Knight Importers can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Richard H. Mimick, Christopher J. Bridgnell suggests that, Importers Proprietor is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Opportunities Knight Importers | 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 Knight Importers are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Importers Proprietor is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Knight Importers 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Importers Proprietor 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. Importers Proprietor 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Importers Proprietor 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.
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 Importers Proprietor 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Importers Proprietor to increase its market reach. Importers Proprietor 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Importers Proprietor 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 Importers Proprietor to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Importers Proprietor 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Importers Proprietor can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Importers Proprietor 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Importers Proprietor 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 Knight Importers - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Importers Proprietor to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Importers Proprietor can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Importers Proprietor 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Importers Proprietor can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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.
Threats Knight Importers External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Knight Importers are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Importers Proprietor 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Importers Proprietor has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Importers Proprietor needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Increasing wage structure of Importers Proprietor
– 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 Importers Proprietor.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Importers Proprietor in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
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 Importers Proprietor in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Importers Proprietor needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Importers Proprietor business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Importers Proprietor 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 Knight Importers .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Importers Proprietor 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Importers Proprietor with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Importers Proprietor is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Importers Proprietor 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Knight Importers 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 Knight Importers 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 Knight Importers 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 Knight Importers 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 Knight Importers 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 Importers Proprietor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.