Swot Analysis of "eBay Partner Network (B)" written by Benjamin Edelman, Ian I. Larkin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ebay Partner facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in eBay Partner Network (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Networking, Sales and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the eBay Partner Network (B) casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of eBay Partner Network (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in eBay Partner Network (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ebay Partner, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ebay Partner 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 eBay Partner Network (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in eBay Partner Network (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ebay Partner
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 Ebay Partner
Strengths eBay Partner Network (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ebay Partner in eBay Partner Network (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Ebay Partner has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ebay Partner to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ebay Partner 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.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ebay Partner digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ebay Partner 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
- Ebay Partner 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 Ebay Partner is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in eBay Partner Network (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ebay Partner 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 eBay Partner Network (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ebay Partner is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the eBay Partner Network (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Ebay Partner is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ebay Partner in the sector have low bargaining power. eBay Partner Network (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ebay Partner to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ebay Partner is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in eBay Partner Network (B) 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.
Training and development
– Ebay Partner has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in eBay Partner Network (B) 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– eBay Partner Network (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ebay Partner to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ebay Partner to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ebay Partner 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 eBay Partner Network (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses eBay Partner Network (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of eBay Partner Network (B) are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ebay Partner 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ebay Partner 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ebay Partner 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benjamin Edelman, Ian I. Larkin suggests that, Ebay Partner 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.
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 Ebay Partner supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - eBay Partner Network (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ebay Partner vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ebay Partner products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ebay Partner needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ebay Partner 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 - eBay Partner Network (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the eBay Partner Network (B) 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 Ebay Partner has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study eBay Partner Network (B) 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 eBay Partner Network (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ebay Partner is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ebay Partner 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study eBay Partner Network (B) has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ebay Partner 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities eBay Partner Network (B) | 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 eBay Partner Network (B) are -
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. Ebay Partner can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Ebay Partner can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. eBay Partner Network (B) 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ebay Partner 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 Ebay Partner to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ebay Partner 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 eBay Partner Network (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ebay Partner to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ebay Partner 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ebay Partner 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ebay Partner 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ebay Partner 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ebay Partner is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. eBay Partner Network (B) 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.
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 Ebay Partner in the consumer business. Now Ebay Partner can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Ebay Partner 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ebay Partner has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Ebay Partner to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the eBay Partner Network (B) case study. Ebay Partner can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ebay Partner 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.
Threats eBay Partner Network (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study eBay Partner Network (B) are -
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 Ebay Partner business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ebay Partner has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ebay Partner 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ebay Partner 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ebay Partner 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.
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. Ebay Partner 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ebay Partner is facing in Technology & Operations 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. Ebay Partner needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ebay Partner 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ebay Partner 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.
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 Ebay Partner.
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 wage structure of Ebay Partner
– 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 Ebay Partner.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ebay Partner 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 eBay Partner Network (B) .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of eBay Partner Network (B) 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 eBay Partner Network (B) 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 eBay Partner Network (B) 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 eBay Partner Network (B) 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 eBay Partner Network (B) 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 Ebay Partner needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.