General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization
General Electric Canada used sociotechnical design techniques to restructure its financial, administrative, facilities, and information technology service from a decentralized, hierarchical organization to a centralized organization composed of self-managing, multi-skilled work teams. The case explores the role of information technology in supporting and enabling the intensive information sharing and communication required by the new organization design.
Swot Analysis of "General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization" written by Lynda M. Applegate, James I. Cash Jr. includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sociotechnical Organization facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication, IT, Leading teams, Organizational structure and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sociotechnical Organization, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sociotechnical Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sociotechnical Organization
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 Sociotechnical Organization
Strengths General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sociotechnical Organization in General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Sociotechnical Organization
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sociotechnical Organization does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sociotechnical Organization 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 brand equity
– Sociotechnical Organization has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sociotechnical Organization to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Sociotechnical Organization 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 Sociotechnical Organization is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sociotechnical Organization is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sociotechnical Organization in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Sociotechnical Organization is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sociotechnical Organization in the sector have low bargaining power. General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sociotechnical Organization to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sociotechnical Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sociotechnical Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sociotechnical Organization has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Weaknesses General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization, is just above the industry average. Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sociotechnical Organization is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Sociotechnical Organization needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sociotechnical Organization to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Lynda M. Applegate, James I. Cash Jr. suggests that, Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Sociotechnical Organization needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sociotechnical Organization, firm in the HBR case study General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization, it seems that the employees of Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sociotechnical Organization 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. Sociotechnical Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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 Sociotechnical Organization has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Sociotechnical Organization supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sociotechnical Organization vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sociotechnical Organization products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sociotechnical Organization needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization | 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sociotechnical Organization can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Technology & Operations segment.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sociotechnical Organization 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.
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. Sociotechnical Organization can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sociotechnical Organization can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sociotechnical Organization in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Technology & Operations segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sociotechnical Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Sociotechnical Organization can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sociotechnical Organization to increase its market reach. Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sociotechnical Organization is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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.
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 Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Threats General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sociotechnical Organization has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sociotechnical Organization needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Technology & Operations 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Environmental challenges
– Sociotechnical Organization 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. Sociotechnical Organization can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Sociotechnical Organization 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sociotechnical Organization with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Sociotechnical Organization can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Sociotechnical Organization business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Sociotechnical Organization 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.
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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization, Sociotechnical Organization 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 .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sociotechnical Organization 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. Sociotechnical Organization needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of General Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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 Electric Canada: Designing a New Organization 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 Sociotechnical Organization needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
