Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group
Most family businesses do not survive beyond two or three generations. One of the main reasons for the short life span of family businesses is due to the lack of governance mechanisms in the family. With better family governance, business development becomes a more enjoyable journey and ensures continuity of the business across generations. This case is about an Indian family business, GMR Group, which was established a quarter century ago, and by 2010 became one of the major diversified infrastructure organizations in the country with large-scale interests in infrastructure (energy, roads and airports) and manufacturing (agri-business, mainly sugar). Since its founding, the Group has come a long way, from an independent proprietary enterprise to a family-owned holding corporation with several companies under its control, along with external stakeholders. The growth of the group has been led by the entrepreneurial zeal and organizational capabilities of its founder G.M Rao. Having seen many family businesses breaking up for want of adequate governance mechanisms, Rao led the way for the writing of his family's constitution with the help of several experts. The entire family spent many hours, and after several rounds of iteration created and signed a constitution in 2007. The writing process of the constitution, and the policies and processes developed were optimal for maximizing GMR's performance and the family's well-being in current and future generations. The case captures the essential processes and output of writing a family constitution.
Authors :: K. Ramachandran, John Ward, Sachin Waikar, Rachna Jha
Swot Analysis of "Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group" written by K. Ramachandran, John Ward, Sachin Waikar, Rachna Jha includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Family Constitution facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, International business, Leadership, Organizational culture, Strategy, Work-life balance and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Family Constitution, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Family Constitution 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Family Constitution
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 Family Constitution
Strengths Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Family Constitution in Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Family Constitution
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Family Constitution does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Family Constitution 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Family Constitution has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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)
– Family Constitution 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Family Constitution 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
– Family Constitution 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 Family Constitution in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Family Constitution is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Family Constitution digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Family Constitution 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Family Constitution is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Family Constitution is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Family Constitution to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Family Constitution to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Family Constitution is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Family Constitution needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Family Constitution to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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 Family Constitution 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, K. Ramachandran, John Ward, Sachin Waikar, Rachna Jha suggests that, Family Constitution 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group, is just above the industry average. Family Constitution 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Family Constitution has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Lack of clear differentiation of Family Constitution products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Family Constitution needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group, in the dynamic environment Family Constitution has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Family Constitution has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Family Constitution has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Family Constitution even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Family Constitution, firm in the HBR case study Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Family Constitution 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 - Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group, it seems that the employees of Family Constitution 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.
Opportunities Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group | 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group are -
Manufacturing automation
– Family Constitution can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Family Constitution can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Family Constitution can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Family Constitution 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 Family Constitution to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Family Constitution 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, Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Family Constitution can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Family Constitution 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, Family Constitution 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Family Constitution has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Family Constitution to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group case study. Family Constitution can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Family Constitution 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Family Constitution to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Family Constitution 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Family Constitution 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Family Constitution 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.
Threats Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group are -
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 Family Constitution.
Environmental challenges
– Family Constitution 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. Family Constitution can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Family Constitution is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Family Constitution 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Family Constitution 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.
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. Family Constitution 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.
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. Family Constitution needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Family Constitution 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Family Constitution 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Family Constitution 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Family Constitution 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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 Ensuring Family and Business Continuity at India's GMR Group 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 Family Constitution needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.