Case Study Description of The Columbus Partnership
The Columbus Partnership, a civic alliance bringing together the heads of roughly 50 leading organizations in central Ohio, has made strides in developing the region's economy. But a stinging defeat at the ballot box has set back the Partnership's efforts to improve local public education. As the case opens in May 2014, the Partnership's leaders must decide whether to continue to try to improve public education and, if so, how.
Swot Analysis of "The Columbus Partnership" written by Jan W. Rivkin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Partnership's Columbus facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Columbus Partnership case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Columbus Partnership casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Columbus Partnership
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Columbus Partnership case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Partnership's Columbus, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Partnership's Columbus 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 The Columbus Partnership can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Columbus Partnership case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Partnership's Columbus
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 Partnership's Columbus
Strengths The Columbus Partnership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Partnership's Columbus in The Columbus Partnership Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Partnership's Columbus 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 The Columbus Partnership - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Partnership's Columbus 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– The Columbus Partnership firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Partnership's Columbus to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Partnership's Columbus to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Partnership's Columbus 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 Partnership's Columbus is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Columbus Partnership Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Partnership's Columbus 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Partnership's Columbus is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Columbus Partnership Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Partnership's Columbus 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 The Columbus Partnership HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Partnership's Columbus has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Columbus Partnership 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.
Analytics focus
– Partnership's Columbus 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 Jan W. Rivkin 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Partnership's Columbus is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Columbus Partnership are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Partnership's Columbus has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Partnership's Columbus to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Partnership's Columbus in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses The Columbus Partnership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Columbus Partnership are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Columbus Partnership 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 The Columbus Partnership can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Partnership's Columbus is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Partnership's Columbus products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Partnership's Columbus needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Columbus Partnership has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Partnership's Columbus 's lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The Columbus Partnership HBR case study mentions - Partnership's Columbus 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Columbus Partnership, in the dynamic environment Partnership's Columbus has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Partnership's Columbus has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Partnership's Columbus has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High 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 Partnership's Columbus supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Columbus Partnership, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Partnership's Columbus vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Partnership's Columbus 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Columbus Partnership, 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Partnership's Columbus has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Partnership's Columbus, firm in the HBR case study The Columbus Partnership needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities The Columbus Partnership | 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 The Columbus Partnership are -
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. Partnership's Columbus can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Partnership's Columbus to increase its market reach. Partnership's Columbus 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Partnership's Columbus 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, The Columbus Partnership, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Partnership's Columbus 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Partnership's Columbus 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Partnership's Columbus can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Partnership's Columbus 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, Partnership's Columbus is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Columbus Partnership 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Partnership's Columbus 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 Partnership's Columbus to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Partnership's Columbus can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Partnership's Columbus 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 The Columbus Partnership - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Partnership's Columbus to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Partnership's Columbus 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Partnership's Columbus 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.
Threats The Columbus Partnership External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Columbus Partnership are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Partnership's Columbus 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 The Columbus Partnership .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Partnership's Columbus has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Partnership's Columbus 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Partnership's Columbus 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Partnership's Columbus can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Partnership's Columbus 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Partnership's Columbus with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Partnership's Columbus needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Partnership's Columbus 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.
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 Partnership's Columbus business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Partnership's Columbus 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Partnership's Columbus 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.
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 Partnership's Columbus.
Regulatory challenges
– Partnership's Columbus 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Columbus Partnership 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 The Columbus Partnership 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 The Columbus Partnership 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 The Columbus Partnership 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 The Columbus Partnership 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 Partnership's Columbus needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.