Swot Analysis of "Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue" written by Karen J. Freeze includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Crown Design facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Design, Manufacturing, Marketing, Organizational structure, Supply chain and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crown Design, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crown Design 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crown Design
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 Crown Design
Strengths Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Crown Design in Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Crown Design is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Crown Design
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Crown Design does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Crown Design in the sector have low bargaining power. Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Crown Design to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Crown Design 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 Crown Design in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Crown Design 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.
Training and development
– Crown Design has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Crown Design 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Crown Design digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Crown Design 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Crown Design 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Crown Design in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Crown Design 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Crown Design, firm in the HBR case study Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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 Crown Design has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Crown Design supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Crown Design vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Karen J. Freeze suggests that, Crown Design 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue HBR case study mentions - Crown Design 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Crown Design is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crown Design 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. Crown Design 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Crown Design 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Crown Design 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Crown Design 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 - Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue, is just above the industry average. Crown Design 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.
Opportunities Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue | 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Crown Design can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Crown Design operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Crown Design 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 Crown Design can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Crown Design can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Crown Design 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.
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. Crown Design can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Crown Design 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.
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. Crown Design 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. Crown Design 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Crown Design 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.
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. Crown Design can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Crown Design 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, Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Crown Design 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 Crown Design to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Crown Design in the consumer business. Now Crown Design can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Crown Design 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Crown Design is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Crown Design 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. Crown Design can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Crown Design 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.
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 Crown Design business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Crown Design 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Crown Design 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue .
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. Crown Design can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Crown Design 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.
Increasing wage structure of Crown Design
– 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 Crown Design.
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 Crown Design.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue, Crown Design 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Crown Design 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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 Crown Equipment Corp.: Design Services Strategy, Epilogue 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 Crown Design needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
