San Francisco Symphony SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony (SFS) is a major U.S. orchestra that took on ancillary activities as part of its mission to bring the best in music to the Bay Area. Despite increasing costs, SFS posted surpluses for 15 consecutive years. However, by the end of 1993, SFS faced a shift in its financial fortunes: forecasts indicated annual budget shortfalls of $25 million in total deficits by the end of the 1999-2000 season. In 1994, SFS had just signed a "superstar" music director to lead SFS into the 21st century whose ambitions for the orchestra were boundless. Students will step into the role of an executive committee member attending a strategy retreat to develop a strategy for SFS that balances its financial needs and its artistic commitments and aspirations. Key issues for a financial plan and supporting operations are: 1) relationships with orchestra musicians and their union contract, 2) buyers' capacity for accepting continued increases in ticket prices, 3) the likelihood of substantial increases in annual contributions, 4) local responses to changes in the orchestra's community activities, and 5) the new music director's expectations for support of his artistic aspirations.
Authors :: William F. Meehan III, Molly McNamee, Deena Soulon
Swot Analysis of "San Francisco Symphony" written by William F. Meehan III, Molly McNamee, Deena Soulon includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sfs Orchestra facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in San Francisco Symphony case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Public relations, Strategic planning and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the San Francisco Symphony casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of San Francisco Symphony
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in San Francisco Symphony case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sfs Orchestra, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sfs Orchestra 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 San Francisco Symphony can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in San Francisco Symphony case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sfs Orchestra
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 Sfs Orchestra
Strengths San Francisco Symphony | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sfs Orchestra in San Francisco Symphony Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sfs Orchestra in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Sfs Orchestra 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 Sfs Orchestra is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in San Francisco Symphony Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sfs Orchestra 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sfs Orchestra 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sfs Orchestra 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 San Francisco Symphony HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sfs Orchestra 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 San Francisco Symphony - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Sfs Orchestra 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 William F. Meehan III, Molly McNamee, Deena Soulon 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sfs Orchestra has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sfs Orchestra has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sfs Orchestra digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sfs Orchestra 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sfs Orchestra is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in San Francisco Symphony Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Sfs Orchestra 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 Sfs Orchestra 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
– Sfs Orchestra is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses San Francisco Symphony | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of San Francisco Symphony are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sfs Orchestra is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Sfs Orchestra needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sfs Orchestra to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sfs Orchestra, firm in the HBR case study San Francisco Symphony needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study San Francisco Symphony, 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study San Francisco Symphony, is just above the industry average. Sfs Orchestra 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study San Francisco Symphony, in the dynamic environment Sfs Orchestra has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sfs Orchestra has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study San Francisco Symphony 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 San Francisco Symphony can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sfs Orchestra is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sfs Orchestra 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. Sfs Orchestra 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As San Francisco Symphony HBR case study mentions - Sfs Orchestra 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sfs Orchestra 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sfs Orchestra 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 - San Francisco Symphony 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, William F. Meehan III, Molly McNamee, Deena Soulon suggests that, Sfs Orchestra 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.
Opportunities San Francisco Symphony | 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 San Francisco Symphony are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sfs Orchestra 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 San Francisco Symphony - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sfs Orchestra to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sfs Orchestra 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sfs Orchestra to increase its market reach. Sfs Orchestra 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.
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. Sfs Orchestra can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Sfs Orchestra can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. San Francisco Symphony 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sfs Orchestra can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sfs Orchestra operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
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 Sfs Orchestra to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sfs Orchestra can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sfs Orchestra 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, San Francisco Symphony, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sfs Orchestra 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sfs Orchestra 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.
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 Sfs Orchestra in the consumer business. Now Sfs Orchestra can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sfs Orchestra 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.
Threats San Francisco Symphony External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study San Francisco Symphony are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sfs Orchestra is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Sfs Orchestra needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sfs Orchestra 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sfs Orchestra 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sfs Orchestra 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 San Francisco Symphony .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study San Francisco Symphony, Sfs Orchestra 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Sfs Orchestra 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. Sfs Orchestra can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sfs Orchestra 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.
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 Sfs Orchestra business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sfs Orchestra 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. Sfs Orchestra 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sfs Orchestra 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sfs Orchestra with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of San Francisco Symphony 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 San Francisco Symphony 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 San Francisco Symphony 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 San Francisco Symphony 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 San Francisco Symphony 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 Sfs Orchestra needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
