Swot Analysis of "Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man" written by Meg Rithmire, Dawn Lau includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sick Philippines facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sick Philippines, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sick Philippines 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sick Philippines
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sick Philippines
Strengths Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sick Philippines in Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sick Philippines 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Sick Philippines 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 Sick Philippines is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Sick Philippines 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 Sick Philippines in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Sick Philippines
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sick Philippines does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sick Philippines 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sick Philippines in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sick Philippines digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sick Philippines 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Sick Philippines is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sick Philippines is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sick Philippines in the sector have low bargaining power. Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sick Philippines to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sick Philippines 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
– Sick Philippines is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man, it seems that the employees of Sick Philippines 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man, is just above the industry average. Sick Philippines 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Sick Philippines 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, Sick Philippines 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. Sick Philippines 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sick Philippines products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sick Philippines needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sick Philippines is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sick Philippines 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sick Philippines 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sick Philippines 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sick Philippines 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.
Opportunities Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man | 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sick Philippines in the consumer business. Now Sick Philippines can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sick Philippines 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sick Philippines to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sick Philippines 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sick Philippines 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 Global Business segment.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sick Philippines to increase its market reach. Sick Philippines 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.
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. Sick Philippines can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Sick Philippines can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sick Philippines 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. Sick Philippines 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sick Philippines 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, Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sick Philippines in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sick Philippines can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sick Philippines can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sick Philippines 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 Sick Philippines to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sick Philippines can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sick Philippines in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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 Sick Philippines business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Sick Philippines in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Sick Philippines
– 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 Sick Philippines.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sick Philippines with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Sick Philippines.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sick Philippines 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sick Philippines 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man .
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
– Sick Philippines 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.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Sick Philippines needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sick Philippines has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sick Philippines needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man 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 Philippines: From Sick Man to Strong Man 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 Sick Philippines needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.