Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Wooqer: Making Business Social (A)
Information technologies enable key divisions of an organization such as HR, Training, Operations, and Legal, to achieve operational efficiency. In addition, IT can and must be used to enhance the company's strategic positioning by "socially" engaging an ecosystem of stakeholders: employees, suppliers, and customers. For this, the company's back-end IT infrastructure must be linked up with the front-line so that information can flow smoothly, and important decisions can be made in real-time. In this context, we make a distinction between Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement. The latter category of IT is now emerging, and will change the business landscape in substantial ways. This case is about one such platform of engagement called Wooqer, which business heads can harness to tackle a variety of problems. Wooqer facilitates communities of users to function independently, without requiring constant assistance from IT. The case begins by describing the information systems that drive business at Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, India's largest apparel retailer. In a rapidly expanding retail environment, Madura's Strategy Head has to decide between implementing point solutions to different technology problems, and rolling out a system of engagement.
Authors :: Shankar Venkatagiri, Yalla Veera Prakash
Swot Analysis of "Wooqer: Making Business Social (A)" written by Shankar Venkatagiri, Yalla Veera Prakash includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wooqer Engagement facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Product development, Strategy and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Wooqer: Making Business Social (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wooqer Engagement, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wooqer Engagement
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 Wooqer Engagement
Strengths Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wooqer Engagement in Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Wooqer Engagement has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Wooqer Engagement 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.
Learning organization
- Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer Engagement is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Wooqer Engagement is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer Engagement 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.
Training and development
– Wooqer Engagement has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Wooqer: Making Business Social (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.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Wooqer Engagement digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Wooqer Engagement 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wooqer Engagement 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Wooqer Engagement is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) 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)
– Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Wooqer Engagement has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wooqer Engagement to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Wooqer: Making Business Social (A), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wooqer Engagement 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Wooqer Engagement 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 - Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) 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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (A), in the dynamic environment Wooqer Engagement has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Wooqer Engagement has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (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 Wooqer Engagement has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wooqer Engagement is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Wooqer: Making Business Social (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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Wooqer: Making Business Social (A), is just above the industry average. Wooqer Engagement needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Shankar Venkatagiri, Yalla Veera Prakash suggests that, Wooqer Engagement 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) HBR case study mentions - Wooqer Engagement 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Wooqer Engagement, firm in the HBR case study Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Wooqer: Making Business Social (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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Wooqer Engagement 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wooqer Engagement 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wooqer Engagement 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Wooqer Engagement 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Wooqer Engagement can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wooqer Engagement operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer Engagement to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Wooqer Engagement can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Wooqer Engagement 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.
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. Wooqer Engagement can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wooqer Engagement to increase its market reach. Wooqer Engagement 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Wooqer Engagement 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, Wooqer: Making Business Social (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Wooqer Engagement 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. Wooqer Engagement 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. Wooqer Engagement 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.
Threats Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Wooqer: Making Business Social (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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wooqer Engagement 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Wooqer Engagement is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Wooqer Engagement in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Wooqer Engagement with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wooqer Engagement 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Wooqer Engagement 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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (A) .
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 Wooqer Engagement business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Wooqer: Making Business Social (A), Wooqer Engagement 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Wooqer Engagement 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. Wooqer Engagement can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
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. Wooqer Engagement 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.
Increasing wage structure of Wooqer Engagement
– 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 Wooqer Engagement.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wooqer Engagement has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wooqer Engagement 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wooqer: Making Business Social (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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (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 Wooqer: Making Business Social (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 Wooqer Engagement needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.