Case Study Description of Eggrock Partners, LLC (A)
Explores the challenges of choosing how to grow a professional services firm (PSF). Before developing a growth strategy, the partners need to agree on what business(es) the company should be in. Each of the three partners has differing views of what the company should be doing to develop and maintain strong customer relationships.
Authors :: Thomas J. DeLong, Myra M. Hart, Sharon I. Peyus
Swot Analysis of "Eggrock Partners, LLC (A)" written by Thomas J. DeLong, Myra M. Hart, Sharon I. Peyus includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Partners Eggrock facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eggrock Partners, LLC (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Partners Eggrock, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Partners Eggrock 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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Partners Eggrock
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 Partners Eggrock
Strengths Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Partners Eggrock in Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Partners Eggrock is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Partners Eggrock 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 Thomas J. DeLong, Myra M. Hart, Sharon I. Peyus 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Partners Eggrock to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Partners Eggrock to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Partners Eggrock digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Partners Eggrock 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Partners Eggrock has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Partners Eggrock 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Partners Eggrock 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.
Organizational Resilience of Partners Eggrock
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Partners Eggrock does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Partners Eggrock 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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (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.
Training and development
– Partners Eggrock has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Eggrock Partners, LLC (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.
Learning organization
- Partners Eggrock 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 Partners Eggrock is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Partners Eggrock 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
– Partners Eggrock 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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Partners Eggrock has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Partners Eggrock is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Partners Eggrock needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Partners Eggrock to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Partners Eggrock 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) HBR case study mentions - Partners Eggrock 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Partners Eggrock 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Partners Eggrock 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Partners Eggrock is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Eggrock Partners, LLC (A), it seems that the employees of Partners Eggrock 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) 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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Partners Eggrock is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Eggrock Partners, LLC (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 Partners Eggrock has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Eggrock Partners, LLC (A), in the dynamic environment Partners Eggrock has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Partners Eggrock has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Eggrock Partners, LLC (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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) are -
Manufacturing automation
– Partners Eggrock can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Technology & Operations 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Partners Eggrock can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Partners Eggrock 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.
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 Partners Eggrock in the consumer business. Now Partners Eggrock can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Partners Eggrock 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. Partners Eggrock 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.
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 Partners Eggrock 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Partners Eggrock 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Partners Eggrock can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Partners Eggrock can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Partners Eggrock has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Partners Eggrock to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) case study. Partners Eggrock can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Partners Eggrock 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Partners Eggrock 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Partners Eggrock to increase its market reach. Partners Eggrock 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.
Threats Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Eggrock Partners, LLC (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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Partners Eggrock 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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (A) .
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. Partners Eggrock can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Partners Eggrock has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Partners Eggrock 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Partners Eggrock 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Partners Eggrock with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Partners Eggrock in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Partners Eggrock 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.
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 Partners Eggrock business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Partners Eggrock 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.
Environmental challenges
– Partners Eggrock 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. Partners Eggrock can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
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. Partners Eggrock needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Partners Eggrock 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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (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 Eggrock Partners, LLC (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 Partners Eggrock needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.