Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word
Mackenzie Spencer, vice president of operations at Strategic Consulting Group, must determine a staffing (the "S" word) plan for the upcoming year. She must balance the costs of overstaffing with those of understaffing in the face of uncertain demand for future services. Students can either determine a staffing plan based on the expected demand or by taking into account the uncertainty by simulating demand. This case was awarded second place in the 2017 Decision Sciences Institute case-writing competition. It is used at Darden in the first-year operations course as well as in the service operations elective. This case would also be suitable for use in a first-year decision analysis course or in an elective or course module covering optimization.
Swot Analysis of "Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word" written by Elliott N. Weiss, Kate Stets includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Staffing Word facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Staffing Word, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Staffing Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Staffing Word
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 Staffing Word
Strengths Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Staffing Word in Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Staffing Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Staffing Word 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Staffing Word is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Staffing Word 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.
Organizational Resilience of Staffing Word
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Staffing Word 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 Staffing Word in the sector have low bargaining power. Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Staffing Word to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Staffing Word is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Staffing Word has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Staffing Word digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Staffing Word 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Staffing Word has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Staffing Word 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Staffing Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Staffing Word in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Staffing Word is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Staffing Word needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Staffing Word to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Staffing Word, firm in the HBR case study Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Staffing Word is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Staffing Word has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Staffing Word 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 - Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Staffing Word products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Staffing Word needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elliott N. Weiss, Kate Stets suggests that, Staffing Word 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word, is just above the industry average. Staffing Word 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word, it seems that the employees of Staffing Word 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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 Staffing Word has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Staffing Word 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.
Opportunities Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word | 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word are -
Buying journey improvements
– Staffing Word can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Staffing Word 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Staffing Word to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Staffing Word 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Staffing Word is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Staffing Word can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Staffing Word 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 Staffing Word 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 Staffing Word to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Staffing Word 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Staffing Word 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 Staffing Word to increase its market reach. Staffing Word 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.
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. Staffing Word can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Staffing Word 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. Staffing Word can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Threats Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word are -
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. Staffing Word 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Staffing Word 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.
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 Staffing Word business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word, Staffing Word 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, Staffing Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Staffing Word 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Staffing Word has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Staffing Word 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
– Staffing Word 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.
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 Staffing Word.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Staffing Word 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 Staffing Word is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Staffing Word 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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 Staffing at the Strategic Advising Consulting Group: The "S" Word 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 Staffing Word needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
