Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Who Moved My Shared Service Centre?
In a search for an optimized global business service operation, firms set up and relocate shared service centres around the globe. This teaching case examines the migration process of IBM procurement shared service centre from Budapest to Sofia. The teaching case describes the challenges that the teams in Budapest and Sofia faced and the migration methodology applied and later on adapted in order to meet the transition objectives. The teaching case concludes by challenging IBM's migration approach.
Swot Analysis of "Who Moved My Shared Service Centre?" written by Ilan Oshri includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Migration Sofia facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Operations management and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Who Moved My Shared Service Centre?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Migration Sofia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Migration Sofia 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Migration Sofia
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 Migration Sofia
Strengths Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Migration Sofia in Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Migration Sofia digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Migration Sofia 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Migration Sofia in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Migration Sofia 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Migration Sofia is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Ilan Oshri can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Learning organization
- Migration Sofia 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 Migration Sofia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Migration Sofia 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Migration Sofia has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Migration Sofia 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Migration Sofia is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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
– Migration Sofia has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Migration Sofia is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Migration Sofia 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.
Weaknesses Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? are -
Need for greater diversity
– Migration Sofia 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Migration Sofia products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Migration Sofia needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Migration Sofia 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. Migration Sofia 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? HBR case study mentions - Migration Sofia 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 Migration Sofia, firm in the HBR case study Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Migration Sofia 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Who Moved My Shared Service Centre?, it seems that the employees of Migration Sofia 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Migration Sofia 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Who Moved My Shared Service Centre?, is just above the industry average. Migration Sofia 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Who Moved My Shared Service Centre?, in the dynamic environment Migration Sofia has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Migration Sofia has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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 Migration Sofia 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? | 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Migration Sofia 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Migration Sofia 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 Migration Sofia 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Migration Sofia 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Migration Sofia 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 Migration Sofia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Migration Sofia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Migration Sofia has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Migration Sofia to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? case study. Migration Sofia can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Migration Sofia 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Migration Sofia 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Migration Sofia to increase its market reach. Migration Sofia 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Migration Sofia can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Migration Sofia 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.
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. Migration Sofia 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. Migration Sofia 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.
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 Migration Sofia in the consumer business. Now Migration Sofia can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? are -
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 Migration Sofia in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Migration Sofia 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. Migration Sofia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Migration Sofia 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Migration Sofia is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre?, Migration Sofia 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 .
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. Migration Sofia 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Migration Sofia 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.
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. Migration Sofia needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Migration Sofia business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Migration Sofia with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Migration Sofia 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, Migration Sofia 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Migration Sofia 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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 Who Moved My Shared Service Centre? 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 Migration Sofia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
