Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army
Increasingly, employees are innovating with their own consumer technologies (such as smartphones and tablets), rather than looking to their companies' IT departments to lead technical innovation. This can give rise to tension between employees and IT departments, and this tension is particularly pronounced in the US military, where long systems development times run headlong into young, technology-savvy soldiers arriving in camp with smartphones, sophisticated applications, and high expectations. In this case study, this phenomenon plays out in the person of a US Army Captain who, using resources obtained via the Internet and while on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, develops and sells an inexpensive iPhone application - Tactical NAV - that provides soldiers with a sophisticated navigation tool.
Authors :: Dennis A Adams, Blake Ives, Iris Junglas
Swot Analysis of "Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army" written by Dennis A Adams, Blake Ives, Iris Junglas includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Nav Soldiers facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nav Soldiers, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nav Soldiers 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nav Soldiers
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 Nav Soldiers
Strengths Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nav Soldiers in Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Nav Soldiers
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Nav Soldiers 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 Nav Soldiers 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nav Soldiers 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Nav Soldiers 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 Nav Soldiers is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nav Soldiers digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nav Soldiers 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Nav Soldiers 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Nav Soldiers to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Nav Soldiers to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Nav Soldiers in the sector have low bargaining power. Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nav Soldiers to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Nav Soldiers 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 Nav Soldiers in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Nav Soldiers has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nav Soldiers in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Nav Soldiers is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Nav Soldiers 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nav Soldiers 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army, in the dynamic environment Nav Soldiers has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Nav Soldiers has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Nav Soldiers 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Nav Soldiers is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Nav Soldiers 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Nav Soldiers is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Nav Soldiers is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Nav Soldiers needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Nav Soldiers to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nav Soldiers 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Nav Soldiers has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Nav Soldiers products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Nav Soldiers needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army | 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Nav Soldiers 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, Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Nav Soldiers can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Nav Soldiers to increase its market reach. Nav Soldiers 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nav Soldiers 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 Nav Soldiers to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Nav Soldiers is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Nav Soldiers 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nav Soldiers 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nav Soldiers to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Nav Soldiers 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. Nav Soldiers 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nav Soldiers has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Nav Soldiers to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army case study. Nav Soldiers can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Nav Soldiers can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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
– Nav Soldiers 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.
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. Nav Soldiers can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nav Soldiers 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army are -
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. Nav Soldiers can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nav Soldiers 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.
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. Nav Soldiers 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army, Nav Soldiers 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nav Soldiers has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nav Soldiers 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nav Soldiers is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nav Soldiers 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Nav Soldiers 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.
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 Nav Soldiers.
Environmental challenges
– Nav Soldiers 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. Nav Soldiers 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. Nav Soldiers needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Nav Soldiers with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Tactical NAV: Innovation in the US Army 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 Nav Soldiers needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
