IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A)
In 1987, IBM changed its strategy in an attempt to become a market-driven company rather than a product-driven company. The case begins with a description of the new strategy and the reasons for the change and then describes the top-down sales planning and quota system in use under the old strategy. Concludes with a discussion of the reasons why the new strategy cannot be implemented without changing the sales planning and quota systems. The challenge for students is to design new systems to support IBM's market-driven strategy.
Swot Analysis of "IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A)" written by Robert L. Simons, Hilary A. Weston includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Quota Driven facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Motivating people, Sales, Strategic planning, Strategy execution and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Quota Driven, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Quota Driven 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Quota Driven
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Quota Driven
Strengths IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Quota Driven in IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Quota Driven in the sector have low bargaining power. IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Quota Driven to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 Finance & Accounting industry
– IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Quota Driven to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Quota Driven to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Quota Driven 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 Quota Driven in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Quota Driven digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Quota Driven 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.
Learning organization
- Quota Driven 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 Quota Driven is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Quota Driven
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Quota Driven 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 Quota Driven 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Quota Driven 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Quota Driven 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Quota Driven is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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
– Quota Driven has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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.
Weaknesses IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A), is just above the industry average. Quota Driven 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Quota Driven has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Quota Driven 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Quota Driven 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. Quota Driven 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Quota Driven 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Quota Driven, firm in the HBR case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Quota Driven is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 Quota Driven 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Quota Driven is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 Quota Driven has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) | 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Quota Driven 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Quota Driven can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Quota Driven is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Quota Driven 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, IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Quota Driven 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Quota Driven has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Quota Driven to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) case study. Quota Driven can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Quota Driven 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Quota Driven can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Quota Driven operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
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 Quota Driven 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Quota Driven can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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 Quota Driven in the consumer business. Now Quota Driven can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Quota Driven 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Quota Driven to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Quota Driven can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Quota Driven is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Quota Driven in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Quota Driven business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Quota Driven 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.
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.
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. Quota Driven 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Quota Driven 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Quota Driven 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) .
Increasing wage structure of Quota Driven
– 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 Quota Driven.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Quota Driven 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Quota Driven with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A), Quota Driven may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 IBM Corp.: "Make It Your Business" (A) 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 Quota Driven needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
