Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired?
Shirdi Infratech Pvt. Ltd. was in the wooden furniture manufacturing business and dealt with a wide range of diversified products such as modular kitchens, furniture, and doors. With its normal profit margin, the firm was growing, but not at a rate that satisfied the owner. At the same time, the business faced personnel management issues. The dilemma began in 2015 when the owner learned that one of his top performers had potentially leaked confidential information to a competitor and was offered employment by them. The owner recognized this employee's importance, as well as the critical timing of the project he was working on. In light of this, would the best option be to retain that employee or let him go? The owner was also concerned about social capital management, and how to use the employee's intellectual skills to develop others in the organization. The authors Anjali Tiwari and Madhushree Agarwal are affiliated with Management Development Institute.
Swot Analysis of "Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired?" written by Anjali Tiwari, Madhushree Agarwal includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Infratech Shirdi facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Talent management and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Infratech Shirdi, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Infratech Shirdi 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Infratech Shirdi
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Infratech Shirdi
Strengths Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Infratech Shirdi in Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Infratech Shirdi is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Infratech Shirdi 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
- Infratech Shirdi 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 Infratech Shirdi is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Infratech Shirdi has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Infratech Shirdi 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Infratech Shirdi in the sector have low bargaining power. Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Infratech Shirdi to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Infratech Shirdi
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Infratech Shirdi does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Infratech Shirdi 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 Anjali Tiwari, Madhushree Agarwal 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Infratech Shirdi in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Infratech Shirdi 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Infratech Shirdi is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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 lead change in Organizational Development field
– Infratech Shirdi 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 Infratech Shirdi in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Infratech Shirdi 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? - 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Infratech Shirdi 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Infratech Shirdi 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. Infratech Shirdi 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Infratech Shirdi, firm in the HBR case study Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired?, in the dynamic environment Infratech Shirdi has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Infratech Shirdi has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Anjali Tiwari, Madhushree Agarwal suggests that, Infratech Shirdi 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired?, is just above the industry average. Infratech Shirdi 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired?, it seems that the employees of Infratech Shirdi 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? HBR case study mentions - Infratech Shirdi 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Organizational Development 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Infratech Shirdi 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Infratech Shirdi 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.
Opportunities Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? | 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? are -
Manufacturing automation
– Infratech Shirdi can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Infratech Shirdi 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.
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. Infratech Shirdi can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Infratech Shirdi can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Infratech Shirdi has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Infratech Shirdi to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? case study. Infratech Shirdi can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Infratech Shirdi is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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 Infratech Shirdi 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 Infratech Shirdi can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Infratech Shirdi 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 Organizational Development segment.
Loyalty marketing
– Infratech Shirdi has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Infratech Shirdi can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development 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.
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 Infratech Shirdi in the consumer business. Now Infratech Shirdi can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Infratech Shirdi can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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.
Threats Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Infratech Shirdi is facing in Organizational Development 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. Infratech Shirdi 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Infratech Shirdi 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 Organizational Development industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Infratech Shirdi 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. Infratech Shirdi can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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 Infratech Shirdi.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Infratech Shirdi in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development 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.
Increasing wage structure of Infratech Shirdi
– 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 Infratech Shirdi.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Infratech Shirdi 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 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Infratech Shirdi 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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Organizational Development field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Infratech Shirdi can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Infratech Shirdi has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Infratech Shirdi needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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 Shirdi Infratech: Should a Star Manager be Fired? 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 Infratech Shirdi needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
