Students in a technology transfer class identify a promising application for a dormant university technology. In the process, they alienate the inventor, who threatens legal action. What exactly are the problems, and how should the professor teaching the class proceed?
Swot Analysis of "SpudSpy" written by Lee Fleming, Daniel C. Snow includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Spudspy Alienate facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in SpudSpy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Regulation, Technology and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the SpudSpy casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in SpudSpy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Spudspy Alienate, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Spudspy Alienate 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 SpudSpy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in SpudSpy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Spudspy Alienate
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 Spudspy Alienate
Strengths SpudSpy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Spudspy Alienate in SpudSpy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Spudspy Alienate 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 SpudSpy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Spudspy Alienate has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Spudspy Alienate to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Spudspy Alienate digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Spudspy Alienate 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– SpudSpy firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Spudspy Alienate to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Spudspy Alienate to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Spudspy Alienate
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Spudspy Alienate 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 Spudspy Alienate in the sector have low bargaining power. SpudSpy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Spudspy Alienate to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Spudspy Alienate has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in SpudSpy Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Spudspy Alienate 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.
Learning organization
- Spudspy Alienate 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 Spudspy Alienate is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in SpudSpy Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Spudspy Alienate in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Spudspy Alienate is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in SpudSpy 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.
Analytics focus
– Spudspy Alienate 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 Lee Fleming, Daniel C. Snow 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.
Weaknesses SpudSpy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SpudSpy are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Spudspy Alienate 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Spudspy Alienate 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As SpudSpy HBR case study mentions - Spudspy Alienate 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study SpudSpy, is just above the industry average. Spudspy Alienate 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, Lee Fleming, Daniel C. Snow suggests that, Spudspy Alienate 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study SpudSpy, it seems that the employees of Spudspy Alienate 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, Spudspy Alienate 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study SpudSpy, 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Spudspy Alienate, firm in the HBR case study SpudSpy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Spudspy Alienate 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the SpudSpy 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 Spudspy Alienate has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities SpudSpy | 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 SpudSpy are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Spudspy Alienate 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.
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. Spudspy Alienate can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Spudspy Alienate 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 Spudspy Alienate to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Spudspy Alienate in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Technology & Operations segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Spudspy Alienate can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Spudspy Alienate operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Spudspy Alienate 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Spudspy Alienate is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SpudSpy case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Spudspy Alienate 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.
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. Spudspy Alienate 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. Spudspy Alienate 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Spudspy Alienate can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. SpudSpy 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Spudspy Alienate 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Spudspy Alienate has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Spudspy Alienate to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the SpudSpy case study. Spudspy Alienate can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Spudspy Alienate can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats SpudSpy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study SpudSpy are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Spudspy Alienate 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 wage structure of Spudspy Alienate
– 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 Spudspy Alienate.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Spudspy Alienate has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Spudspy Alienate 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Spudspy Alienate is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Spudspy Alienate 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Spudspy Alienate 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 SpudSpy .
Regulatory challenges
– Spudspy Alienate 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Spudspy Alienate 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study SpudSpy, Spudspy Alienate 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 .
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. Spudspy Alienate can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Spudspy Alienate.
Environmental challenges
– Spudspy Alienate 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. Spudspy Alienate can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SpudSpy 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 SpudSpy 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 SpudSpy 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 SpudSpy 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 SpudSpy 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 Spudspy Alienate needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
