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 - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, 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 -
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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gcs Consulting has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gcs Consulting 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.
Analytics focus
– Gcs Consulting 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 Surinder Batra, Sandeep Puri 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.
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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Gcs Consulting 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 Gcs Consulting in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? 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 GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gcs Consulting is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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.
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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? HBR case study mentions - Gcs Consulting takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
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.
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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Gcs Consulting 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, Gcs Consulting is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gcs Consulting 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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Gcs Consulting can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Gcs Consulting can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. GCS Consulting: Should Corporate or Personal Interests Come First? suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Loyalty marketing
– Gcs Consulting 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 Gcs Consulting 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 Gcs Consulting to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Gcs Consulting can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Gcs Consulting.
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 Gcs Consulting business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
