Case Study Description of Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions
Before taking competitive action, managers must anticipate the actions of their competitors. This can only be accomplished by performing thorough competitor analysis.
Authors :: Peter J. Coughlan, Debbie Freier, Kaiho Patrick Lee
Swot Analysis of "Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions" written by Peter J. Coughlan, Debbie Freier, Kaiho Patrick Lee includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Competitor Actions facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy, Decision making, Marketing, Motivating people and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Competitor Actions, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Competitor Actions 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Competitor Actions
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 Competitor Actions
Strengths Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Competitor Actions in Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Competitor Actions has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Competitor Actions 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions - 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 Competitor Actions 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Competitor Actions digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Competitor Actions 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Competitor Actions 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Competitor Actions in the sector have low bargaining power. Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Competitor Actions to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Competitor Actions is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Competitor Actions to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Competitor Actions to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Competitor Actions
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Competitor Actions does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Competitor Actions is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Competitor Actions in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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 Competitor Actions 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions, it seems that the employees of Competitor Actions 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 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 Competitor Actions supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Competitor Actions vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Competitor Actions is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Competitor Actions needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Competitor Actions to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Competitor Actions 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Competitor Actions 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Competitor Actions products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Competitor Actions needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Competitor Actions, firm in the HBR case study Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions HBR case study mentions - Competitor Actions 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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 Competitor Actions has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Competitor Actions 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.
Opportunities Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions | 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Competitor Actions 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Competitor Actions has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Competitor Actions to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions case study. Competitor Actions can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Competitor Actions to increase its market reach. Competitor Actions 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Competitor Actions is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Competitor Actions 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, Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Competitor Actions 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. Competitor Actions can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Competitor Actions can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Competitor Actions 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
– Competitor Actions 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Competitor Actions 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Competitor Actions 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 Competitor Actions 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Competitor Actions can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Competitor Actions operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Threats Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions are -
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions, Competitor Actions 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 .
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. Competitor Actions 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.
Increasing wage structure of Competitor Actions
– 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 Competitor Actions.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Competitor Actions 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.
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 Competitor Actions business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Competitor Actions in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Competitor Actions 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. Competitor Actions can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Competitor Actions 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.
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. Competitor Actions can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Competitor Actions with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Competitor Actions 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.
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 Competitor Actions.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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 Competitor Analysis: Anticipating Competitive Actions 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 Competitor Actions needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
