Swot Analysis of "Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change" written by Donna B. Stoddard, Sirkka Jarvenpaa includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Reengineering Conceptual facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Business processes, Change management, IT, Strategy execution and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Reengineering Conceptual, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Reengineering Conceptual 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Reengineering Conceptual
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 Reengineering Conceptual
Strengths Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Reengineering Conceptual in Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Reengineering Conceptual 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 Donna B. Stoddard, Sirkka Jarvenpaa 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Reengineering Conceptual 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.
High brand equity
– Reengineering Conceptual has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Reengineering Conceptual to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Reengineering Conceptual is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Reengineering Conceptual is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Reengineering Conceptual has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Organizational Resilience of Reengineering Conceptual
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Reengineering Conceptual does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Reengineering Conceptual 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Reengineering Conceptual 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 Reengineering Conceptual is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Reengineering Conceptual in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Reengineering Conceptual digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Weaknesses Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Donna B. Stoddard, Sirkka Jarvenpaa suggests that, Reengineering Conceptual 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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 Reengineering Conceptual 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change, it seems that the employees of Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change, is just above the industry average. Reengineering Conceptual 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 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 Reengineering Conceptual supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Reengineering Conceptual vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Reengineering Conceptual, firm in the HBR case study Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Reengineering Conceptual 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 - Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Reengineering Conceptual 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. Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Opportunities Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change | 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change are -
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 Reengineering Conceptual in the consumer business. Now Reengineering Conceptual can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Reengineering Conceptual 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 Reengineering Conceptual to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Reengineering Conceptual 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.
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. Reengineering Conceptual 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. Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Reengineering Conceptual to increase its market reach. Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Reengineering Conceptual 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Reengineering Conceptual to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Reengineering Conceptual 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.
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. Reengineering Conceptual 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
– Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Reengineering Conceptual 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. Reengineering Conceptual can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Reengineering Conceptual to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Threats Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Reengineering Conceptual with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Reengineering Conceptual 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.
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 Reengineering Conceptual business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Reengineering Conceptual has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Reengineering Conceptual 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.
Environmental challenges
– Reengineering Conceptual 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. Reengineering Conceptual can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change, Reengineering Conceptual 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 .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Reengineering Conceptual 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change .
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
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. Reengineering Conceptual needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Reengineering Conceptual is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Reengineering Conceptual
– 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 Reengineering Conceptual.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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 Business Process Reengineering: IT-Enabled Radical Change 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 Reengineering Conceptual needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.