Swot Analysis of "Managing the European Refugee Crisis" written by Gunnar Trumbull, Elena Corsi, Daniela Beyersdorfer includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Refugee Witnessed facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Managing the European Refugee Crisis case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Government, International business and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Managing the European Refugee Crisis casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Managing the European Refugee Crisis
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Managing the European Refugee Crisis case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Refugee Witnessed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Refugee Witnessed 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Managing the European Refugee Crisis case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Refugee Witnessed
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 Refugee Witnessed
Strengths Managing the European Refugee Crisis | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Refugee Witnessed in Managing the European Refugee Crisis Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Managing the European Refugee Crisis firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Refugee Witnessed to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Refugee Witnessed to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Refugee Witnessed is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Managing the European Refugee Crisis Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Refugee Witnessed is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Refugee Witnessed has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Refugee Witnessed in the sector have low bargaining power. Managing the European Refugee Crisis has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Refugee Witnessed to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Refugee Witnessed has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Refugee Witnessed to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Refugee Witnessed is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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.
Analytics focus
– Refugee Witnessed 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 Gunnar Trumbull, Elena Corsi, Daniela Beyersdorfer 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
– Refugee Witnessed is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Managing the European Refugee Crisis are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Refugee Witnessed digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Refugee Witnessed 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Refugee Witnessed 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Refugee Witnessed 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.
Weaknesses Managing the European Refugee Crisis | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Managing the European Refugee Crisis are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Managing the European Refugee Crisis, it seems that the employees of Refugee Witnessed 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Refugee Witnessed products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Refugee Witnessed needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Refugee Witnessed 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.
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 Refugee Witnessed supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Managing the European Refugee Crisis, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Refugee Witnessed vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Managing the European Refugee Crisis, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Refugee Witnessed is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Refugee Witnessed needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Refugee Witnessed to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Refugee Witnessed 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Refugee Witnessed 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 - Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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, Gunnar Trumbull, Elena Corsi, Daniela Beyersdorfer suggests that, Refugee Witnessed 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Refugee Witnessed is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Managing the European Refugee Crisis, is just above the industry average. Refugee Witnessed 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.
Opportunities Managing the European Refugee Crisis | 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Refugee Witnessed 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.
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. Refugee Witnessed can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Refugee Witnessed 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.
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. Refugee Witnessed 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. Refugee Witnessed 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.
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 Refugee Witnessed 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Refugee Witnessed has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Refugee Witnessed to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Managing the European Refugee Crisis case study. Refugee Witnessed can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Refugee Witnessed 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Refugee Witnessed 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
– Refugee Witnessed 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Refugee Witnessed to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Refugee Witnessed 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Refugee Witnessed 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, Managing the European Refugee Crisis, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Refugee Witnessed 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 Refugee Witnessed to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Refugee Witnessed in the consumer business. Now Refugee Witnessed can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Managing the European Refugee Crisis External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Refugee Witnessed has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Refugee Witnessed 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Refugee Witnessed 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Refugee Witnessed 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.
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 Refugee Witnessed in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Refugee Witnessed 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. Refugee Witnessed can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Refugee Witnessed 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.
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. Refugee Witnessed needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Refugee Witnessed
– 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 Refugee Witnessed.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Refugee Witnessed 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis .
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. Refugee Witnessed can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Managing the European Refugee Crisis, Refugee Witnessed 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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 Managing the European Refugee Crisis 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 Refugee Witnessed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
