SINE: Building a Team of the Willing SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of SINE: Building a Team of the Willing
An academic research group, providing services to medical device companies, had studied most of the new materials on the market and under development. They found a new approach for solving known issues related to the mending of damaged living tissue. The lab head and the research group leader knew this would be an opportunity to help a lot of patients and decided to patent the invention. Initial private investment in exchange for 50% IP rights allowed preclinical evaluation. Initial talks with large medical device companies indicated there was interest, but they needed clinical proof first. In collaboration with the University's TTO (technology transfer office), a start-up business plan was devised and venture capital (VC) funding was obtained, which allowed the new technology to get through the first clinical assessment. Dr. Gerard Bouchier, Research Group Leader, December 2008. Spirits were high that 15th of December morning. Gathering for coffee, the team went through their company presentation a last time. All hopes were set upon the meticulously planned VC syndicate meeting that could finally mean a step forward in starting up their medical device company. Having spent the last two years preparing the case, Gerard knew he was prepared. Unfortunately, despite the excellent reception of the case and the positive spirit around the table, none of the VC funds wanted to take the lead. Worse, about two weeks later the Great Financial Crisis hit the region and all funds pulled out of the discussion. What now? learning objective: 1/ How to set up and secure a motivated team of managers. 2/ How to organize the fund raising at an initial stage of development of a company, how to execute a strategic initiative, how to set the course and schedule the right resources, how to quickly adapt strategies in relation to changing environments. 3/ Applying leadership concepts and in particular organizational dynamics.
Swot Analysis of "SINE: Building a Team of the Willing" written by Jim Pulcrano includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Gerard Vc facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in SINE: Building a Team of the Willing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Organizational structure, Strategy execution and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the SINE: Building a Team of the Willing casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SINE: Building a Team of the Willing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in SINE: Building a Team of the Willing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gerard Vc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gerard Vc 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in SINE: Building a Team of the Willing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gerard Vc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Gerard Vc
Strengths SINE: Building a Team of the Willing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gerard Vc in SINE: Building a Team of the Willing Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Gerard Vc has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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.
High brand equity
– Gerard Vc has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gerard Vc to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Gerard Vc is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the SINE: Building a Team of the Willing are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Gerard Vc 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 Gerard Vc in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gerard Vc 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gerard Vc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gerard Vc 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– SINE: Building a Team of the Willing firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gerard Vc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gerard Vc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gerard Vc 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
- Gerard Vc 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 Gerard Vc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in SINE: Building a Team of the Willing Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Gerard Vc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Gerard Vc is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in SINE: Building a Team of the Willing Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses SINE: Building a Team of the Willing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SINE: Building a Team of the Willing are -
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 Gerard Vc supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - SINE: Building a Team of the Willing, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gerard Vc vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Gerard Vc has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study SINE: Building a Team of the Willing, is just above the industry average. Gerard Vc 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gerard Vc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Gerard Vc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gerard Vc to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study SINE: Building a Team of the Willing, it seems that the employees of Gerard Vc 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, Gerard Vc 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gerard Vc products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gerard Vc 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing, in the dynamic environment Gerard Vc has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gerard Vc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gerard Vc has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - SINE: Building a Team of the Willing should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jim Pulcrano suggests that, Gerard Vc 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gerard Vc 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. Gerard Vc 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.
Opportunities SINE: Building a Team of the Willing | 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gerard Vc 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Gerard Vc can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
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. Gerard Vc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gerard Vc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Gerard Vc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gerard Vc to increase its market reach. Gerard Vc 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gerard Vc can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gerard Vc 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 Gerard Vc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gerard Vc to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gerard Vc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Gerard Vc has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Gerard Vc 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gerard Vc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats SINE: Building a Team of the Willing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study SINE: Building a Team of the Willing are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gerard Vc 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gerard Vc is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gerard Vc in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gerard Vc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gerard Vc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
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 Gerard Vc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Gerard Vc.
Environmental challenges
– Gerard Vc 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. Gerard Vc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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. Gerard Vc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Gerard Vc can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gerard Vc 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gerard Vc 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study SINE: Building a Team of the Willing, Gerard Vc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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 SINE: Building a Team of the Willing 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 Gerard Vc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
