The general manager of the Guam Visitors' Bureau, a destination marketing organization, faces the challenge of running the island's tourism industry. There are strong interest groups, who have structured the competitive field in Guam, and the island's mature industry faces ever-increasing competition from rival destinations. The general manager must formulate a realistic strategy that acknowledges the internal and external constraints his organization faces and safeguards the competitive position of Guam.
Swot Analysis of "Guam Visitors' Bureau" written by Jim Kayalar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Guam Island's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Guam Visitors' Bureau case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Guam Visitors' Bureau casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guam Visitors' Bureau
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Guam Visitors' Bureau case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guam Island's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guam Island's 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Guam Visitors' Bureau case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guam Island's
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 Guam Island's
Strengths Guam Visitors' Bureau | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guam Island's in Guam Visitors' Bureau Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Guam Island's 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 recruit top talent
– Guam Island's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Guam Visitors' Bureau 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 Guam Island's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Guam Island's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Guam Island's 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Guam Visitors' Bureau 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Guam Island's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Guam Visitors' Bureau 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guam Island's 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Guam Island's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Guam Island's 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.
Learning organization
- Guam Island's 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 Guam Island's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Guam Visitors' Bureau Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Guam Visitors' Bureau firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guam Island's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guam Island's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Guam Island's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Guam Island's 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 Jim Kayalar 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.
Weaknesses Guam Visitors' Bureau | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guam Visitors' Bureau are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Guam Visitors' Bureau, in the dynamic environment Guam Island's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Guam Island's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Guam Visitors' Bureau HBR case study mentions - Guam Island's 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Guam Island's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Guam Island's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Guam Island's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guam Island's 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Guam Island's 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 - Guam Visitors' Bureau should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Guam Visitors' Bureau 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Guam Island's is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Guam Visitors' Bureau, 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Guam Island's 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. Guam Island's 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Guam Island's has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Guam Island's 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Guam Island's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Guam Island's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Guam Visitors' Bureau | 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau are -
Loyalty marketing
– Guam Island's 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Guam Island's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Guam Island's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Guam Island's 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.
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. Guam Island's 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. Guam Island's 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Guam Island's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Guam Visitors' Bureau 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Guam Island's 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Guam Island's 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Guam Island's 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. Guam Island's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Guam Island's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Guam Island's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Guam Visitors' Bureau case study. Guam Island's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Guam Island's 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guam Island's 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 Guam Island's 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, Guam Island's 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, Guam Visitors' Bureau, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Guam Island's 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.
Threats Guam Visitors' Bureau External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Guam Visitors' Bureau are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Guam Island's 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Guam Visitors' Bureau, Guam Island's 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 .
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. Guam Island's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Guam Island's 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.
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 Guam Island's.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Guam Island's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Guam Island's 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 Guam Island's 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
– Guam Island's 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Guam Island's 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. Guam Island's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Guam Island's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guam Island's 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guam Visitors' Bureau 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau 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 Guam Visitors' Bureau 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 Guam Island's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.