Swot Analysis of "Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students" written by Jan W. Rivkin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Advanced Competitive facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Advanced Competitive, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Advanced Competitive
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 Advanced Competitive
Strengths Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Advanced Competitive in Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Advanced Competitive is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Advanced Competitive
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Advanced Competitive does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Advanced Competitive is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Advanced Competitive to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Advanced Competitive to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Advanced Competitive in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Advanced Competitive has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Advanced Competitive to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Advanced Competitive in the sector have low bargaining power. Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Advanced Competitive to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Advanced Competitive is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students HBR case study mentions - Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students, in the dynamic environment Advanced Competitive has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Advanced Competitive has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Advanced Competitive is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Advanced Competitive needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Advanced Competitive to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Advanced Competitive 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Advanced Competitive 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 - Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students, it seems that the employees of Advanced Competitive 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jan W. Rivkin suggests that, Advanced Competitive 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Advanced Competitive 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Advanced Competitive products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Advanced Competitive needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Advanced Competitive is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students, 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.
Opportunities Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students | 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students are -
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 Advanced Competitive 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Advanced Competitive 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
– Advanced Competitive 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Advanced Competitive 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, Advanced Competitive is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Advanced Competitive to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Advanced Competitive 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Advanced Competitive to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Advanced Competitive can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Advanced Competitive 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. Advanced Competitive 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Advanced Competitive has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Advanced Competitive to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students case study. Advanced Competitive can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Advanced Competitive 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.
Threats Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Advanced Competitive is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Advanced Competitive
– 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 Advanced Competitive.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Advanced Competitive has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Advanced Competitive 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Advanced Competitive 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 Advanced Competitive business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Advanced Competitive 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.
Environmental challenges
– Advanced Competitive 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. Advanced Competitive can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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 Advanced Competitive in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Advanced Competitive can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students, Advanced Competitive 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 .
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. Advanced Competitive needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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 Advanced Competitive Strategy: Integrating the Enterprise, Course Introduction for Students 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 Advanced Competitive needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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