Case Study Description of Visualizing Process Behavior
Process behavior charts-also called control charts or Shewhart charts after their creator-provide a means to interpret data as they are generated. While many statistical methods and graphs are useful only for post hoc analysis, control charts provide a visual and statistically sound basis for identifying issues in a process as they arise, ideally allowing prevention of failures before they occur.
Swot Analysis of "Visualizing Process Behavior" written by Elliott N. Weiss, Chad Tucker includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Charts Shewhart facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Visualizing Process Behavior case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Visualizing Process Behavior casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Visualizing Process Behavior
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Visualizing Process Behavior case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Charts Shewhart, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Charts Shewhart 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 Visualizing Process Behavior can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Visualizing Process Behavior case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Charts Shewhart
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 Charts Shewhart
Strengths Visualizing Process Behavior | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Charts Shewhart in Visualizing Process Behavior Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Charts Shewhart
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Charts Shewhart does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Charts Shewhart is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Visualizing Process Behavior are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Charts Shewhart 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 Elliott N. Weiss, Chad Tucker 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Charts Shewhart is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Charts Shewhart in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Charts Shewhart 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Charts Shewhart 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 Charts Shewhart in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Charts Shewhart digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Charts Shewhart 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Charts Shewhart 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.
Learning organization
- Charts Shewhart 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 Charts Shewhart is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Visualizing Process Behavior Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Charts Shewhart has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Visualizing Process Behavior 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Charts Shewhart has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Charts Shewhart 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.
Weaknesses Visualizing Process Behavior | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Visualizing Process Behavior are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Charts Shewhart is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Visualizing Process Behavior can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Visualizing Process Behavior, it seems that the employees of Charts Shewhart 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Visualizing Process Behavior, is just above the industry average. Charts Shewhart 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Visualizing Process Behavior, 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, Charts Shewhart 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Charts Shewhart 's lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Charts Shewhart 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elliott N. Weiss, Chad Tucker suggests that, Charts Shewhart 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Visualizing Process Behavior, in the dynamic environment Charts Shewhart has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Charts Shewhart has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Charts Shewhart 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 - Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Charts Shewhart has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Visualizing Process Behavior | 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 Visualizing Process Behavior are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Charts Shewhart 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Charts Shewhart 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Charts Shewhart 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, Visualizing Process Behavior, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Charts Shewhart 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Charts Shewhart 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 Charts Shewhart to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Charts Shewhart 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Charts Shewhart can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Charts Shewhart 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 Visualizing Process Behavior - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Charts Shewhart to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Charts Shewhart 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. Charts Shewhart 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Charts Shewhart is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Visualizing Process Behavior 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Charts Shewhart 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Charts Shewhart has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Charts Shewhart to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Visualizing Process Behavior case study. Charts Shewhart can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Charts Shewhart in the consumer business. Now Charts Shewhart can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Visualizing Process Behavior External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Visualizing Process Behavior are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Charts Shewhart with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Charts Shewhart 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, Charts Shewhart 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 Visualizing Process Behavior .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Charts Shewhart has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Charts Shewhart 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.
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 Charts Shewhart in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Visualizing Process Behavior, Charts Shewhart 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 .
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. Charts Shewhart can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Charts Shewhart 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 wage structure of Charts Shewhart
– 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 Charts Shewhart.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Charts Shewhart is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Charts Shewhart 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.
Environmental challenges
– Charts Shewhart 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. Charts Shewhart can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Visualizing Process Behavior 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 Charts Shewhart needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.