Case Study Description of Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries
Safe Boat Trip Private Limited (Safe Boat Trip) of Kerala, India, is planning to launch a hydrofoil ferry service connecting the Port of Kochi, India, with two other ports in the state of Kerala by August 2016, to benefit from the tourism potential of the season in Kerala. The managing director has asked the principal superintendent of Safe Boat Trip to prepare a project plan for the boats to be commissioned into service, following approval from the Indian Register of Shipping (IRS). The principal superintendent must also carry out a break-even analysis of the project investment. With these challenges before him, the superintendent must set out to devise a solid plan of action before the company's next meeting. The authors Joshin John and Neetha J. Eappen are affiliated with Rajagiri Business School. Sushil Kumar is affiliated with Indian Institute of Management Lucknow.
Authors :: Joshin John, Neetha J. Eappen, Sushil Kumar
Swot Analysis of "Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries" written by Joshin John, Neetha J. Eappen, Sushil Kumar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Boat Trip facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Project management and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Boat Trip, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Boat Trip 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Boat Trip
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 Boat Trip
Strengths Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Boat Trip in Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Boat Trip in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Boat Trip 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Boat Trip in the sector have low bargaining power. Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Boat Trip to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Boat Trip is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Boat Trip 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Boat Trip is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Boat Trip has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Boat Trip 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.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Boat Trip 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 Boat Trip in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Boat Trip 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Boat Trip is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Boat Trip to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Boat Trip to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Boat Trip products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Boat Trip needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries, in the dynamic environment Boat Trip has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Boat Trip 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, Joshin John, Neetha J. Eappen, Sushil Kumar suggests that, Boat Trip 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 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 Boat Trip supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Boat Trip vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Boat Trip 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Boat Trip has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Boat Trip, firm in the HBR case study Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Boat Trip is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries, it seems that the employees of Boat Trip 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Boat Trip 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries HBR case study mentions - Boat Trip 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.
Opportunities Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries | 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries are -
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. Boat Trip 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. Boat Trip 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Boat Trip 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Boat Trip to increase its market reach. Boat Trip 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Boat Trip can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Boat Trip has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Boat Trip to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries case study. Boat Trip can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Boat Trip can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Boat Trip is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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.
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. Boat Trip can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Boat Trip 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Boat Trip 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Boat Trip 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 Boat Trip to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Boat Trip 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Boat Trip 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Boat Trip to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Boat Trip 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.
Environmental challenges
– Boat Trip 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. Boat Trip can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Boat Trip 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Boat Trip 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Boat Trip has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Boat Trip 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Boat Trip 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries .
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 Boat Trip.
Increasing wage structure of Boat Trip
– 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 Boat Trip.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Boat Trip is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries, Boat Trip 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Boat Trip 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Safe Boat Trip Ltd.: Launching the Flying Ferries 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 Boat Trip needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.