A manufacturer of cable TV transmission equipment is faced with redesigning its network of international plants that make set-top converters and decoders. One possibility is to have each plant dedicated to manufacturing and engineering support for different product lines. Another is to operate only one "full service" plant, with engineering and ramp-up capability for all product lines and a set of low-overhead, high-volume satellite plants. Depending on what is decided, the company will probably end up closing a different plant. Students must analyze the impact of various sources of market and technological change in order to develop a good manufacturing network strategy for a firm in this fast-changing environment.
Swot Analysis of "General Instrument (A)" written by Ann E. Gray, James Costantini includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Plant Plants facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in General Instrument (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the General Instrument (A) casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of General Instrument (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in General Instrument (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Plant Plants, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Plant Plants 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 General Instrument (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in General Instrument (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Plant Plants
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Plant Plants
Strengths General Instrument (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Plant Plants in General Instrument (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Plant Plants
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Plant Plants does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Plant Plants 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 Ann E. Gray, James Costantini 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Plant Plants is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in General Instrument (A) 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Plant Plants 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 General Instrument (A) Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Plant Plants 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 General Instrument (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Plant Plants has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in General Instrument (A) 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)
– Plant Plants 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 General Instrument (A) - 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 Plant Plants 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Plant Plants in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Plant Plants 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 Technology & Operations field
– Plant Plants 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 Plant Plants in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses General Instrument (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of General Instrument (A) are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study General Instrument (A), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations 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.
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 Plant Plants supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - General Instrument (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Plant Plants vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study General Instrument (A), is just above the industry average. Plant Plants 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Plant Plants 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Plant Plants products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Plant Plants needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Plant Plants 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. Plant Plants 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the General Instrument (A) 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 Plant Plants has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Plant Plants 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 - General Instrument (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Plant Plants 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study General Instrument (A), in the dynamic environment Plant Plants has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Plant Plants has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Plant Plants 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.
Opportunities General Instrument (A) | 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 General Instrument (A) are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Plant Plants 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 General Instrument (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Plant Plants to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Plant Plants can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Plant Plants 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.
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 Plant Plants 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Plant Plants 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Plant Plants 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 Plant Plants 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 Plant Plants 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, Plant Plants 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, General Instrument (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Plant Plants is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. General Instrument (A) 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.
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. Plant Plants can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Plant Plants can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Plant Plants can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Plant Plants 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 General Instrument (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study General Instrument (A) 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Plant Plants 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Plant Plants can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Plant Plants 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. Plant Plants can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Plant Plants in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Plant Plants 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.
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. Plant Plants needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Plant Plants
– 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 Plant Plants.
Regulatory challenges
– Plant Plants 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 Technology & Operations industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Plant Plants 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 General Instrument (A) .
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study General Instrument (A), Plant Plants may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Plant Plants in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of General Instrument (A) 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 General Instrument (A) 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 General Instrument (A) 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 General Instrument (A) 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 General Instrument (A) 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 Plant Plants needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
