EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity
EMMICO has just acquired Franz Kuerten and is trying to integrate its Vienna plant operations. The problem is the company is storing too much inventory at the plant and its off-site warehouse - up to five times the amount it needs for regular production. To hit the inventory sweet spot, student interns from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan are tasked with using two models to calculate economic order quantity. They will have to report their findings in a week.
Swot Analysis of "EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity" written by Prakash Sathe includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Emmico Quantity facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Emmico Quantity, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Emmico Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Emmico Quantity
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 Emmico Quantity
Strengths EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Emmico Quantity in EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Emmico Quantity digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Emmico Quantity 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Emmico Quantity is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Emmico Quantity is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Emmico Quantity has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Emmico Quantity 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
– Emmico Quantity has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Emmico Quantity to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Emmico Quantity is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Emmico Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Emmico Quantity
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Emmico Quantity does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Emmico Quantity in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Emmico Quantity 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.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Emmico Quantity 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 Emmico Quantity in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 Emmico Quantity 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Emmico Quantity 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. Emmico Quantity 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 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 Emmico Quantity supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Emmico Quantity vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Emmico Quantity has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Emmico Quantity 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Emmico Quantity 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 - EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity, in the dynamic environment Emmico Quantity has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Emmico Quantity has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Emmico Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 Emmico Quantity has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity, it seems that the employees of Emmico Quantity 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Emmico Quantity products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Emmico Quantity needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity | 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity are -
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. Emmico Quantity 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. Emmico Quantity 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Emmico Quantity is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Emmico Quantity 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Emmico Quantity 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Emmico Quantity 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Emmico Quantity 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. Emmico Quantity can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Emmico Quantity 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Emmico Quantity 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Emmico Quantity can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Emmico Quantity operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
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 Emmico Quantity in the consumer business. Now Emmico Quantity can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Emmico Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Emmico Quantity to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Emmico Quantity can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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.
Threats EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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. Emmico Quantity can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Emmico Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Emmico Quantity has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Emmico Quantity 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Emmico Quantity 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.
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. Emmico Quantity 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Emmico Quantity 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Emmico Quantity with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Emmico Quantity 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Emmico Quantity 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.
Increasing wage structure of Emmico Quantity
– 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 Emmico Quantity.
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 Emmico Quantity.
Environmental challenges
– Emmico Quantity 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. Emmico Quantity can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 EMMICO: How to Establish Economic Order Quantity 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 Emmico Quantity needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
