GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?
In recent years, the critical function of expanding GCS Consulting's information technology consulting business had lost priority as the managing director of the firm was increasingly preoccupied with World Bank engagements as an IT consultant. He was aware of the immense potential in new areas of consulting and changing business models. However, he was also conscious of the investment of time, effort and finances that would be required on his part to strengthen GCS's marketing activities and build up a team of professionals well versed in newly emerging consulting areas such as social media, mobile, analytics and cloud computing. Should he promote GCS or move ahead as an individual IT consultant? Surinder Batra is affiliated with Institute of Management Technology. Sandeep Puri is affiliated with Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad.
Swot Analysis of "GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?" written by Surinder Batra, Sandeep Puri includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Gcs Consulting facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gcs Consulting, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gcs Consulting 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gcs Consulting
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 Gcs Consulting
Strengths GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gcs Consulting in GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Gcs Consulting has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Gcs Consulting is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gcs Consulting 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
– Gcs Consulting 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gcs Consulting to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gcs Consulting to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Gcs Consulting has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gcs Consulting to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gcs Consulting is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 Gcs Consulting in the sector have low bargaining power. GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gcs Consulting to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Gcs Consulting is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 Gcs Consulting 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gcs Consulting digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gcs Consulting 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.
Weaknesses GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gcs Consulting 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Gcs Consulting has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Gcs Consulting 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gcs Consulting is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Gcs Consulting needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gcs Consulting to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?, in the dynamic environment Gcs Consulting has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gcs Consulting has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?, it seems that the employees of Gcs Consulting 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gcs Consulting 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 - GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Surinder Batra, Sandeep Puri suggests that, Gcs Consulting 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Gcs Consulting, firm in the HBR case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?, is just above the industry average. Gcs Consulting 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gcs Consulting has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Gcs Consulting even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Opportunities GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? | 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? are -
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 Gcs Consulting in the consumer business. Now Gcs Consulting can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gcs Consulting 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gcs Consulting to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Gcs Consulting can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gcs Consulting 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gcs Consulting 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gcs Consulting 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, Gcs Consulting can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gcs Consulting operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gcs Consulting to increase its market reach. Gcs Consulting 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.
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. Gcs Consulting 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. Gcs Consulting 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gcs Consulting can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gcs Consulting is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Gcs Consulting 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gcs Consulting 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.
Threats GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? are -
Environmental challenges
– Gcs Consulting 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. Gcs Consulting can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gcs Consulting 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gcs Consulting 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? .
Regulatory challenges
– Gcs Consulting 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.
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. Gcs Consulting 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.
Increasing wage structure of Gcs Consulting
– 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 Gcs Consulting.
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 Gcs Consulting in the Strategy & Execution 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. Gcs Consulting needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gcs Consulting 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gcs Consulting 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?, Gcs Consulting 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 .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gcs Consulting is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Gcs Consulting with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 Gcs Consulting needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.