Case Study Description of Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic)
Supplement to case W18067. Two executives at Express Trucking-the vice-president of legal affairs, and the vice-president of sales-were preparing for an executive team meeting. The two vice-presidents were disputing the terms of a customer contract to be signed the following day. According to the vice-president of legal affairs, the contract needed to be revised to include a standard clause regarding Express Trucking's liability, whereas the vice-president of sales feared losing the contract if any changes were made. The company's chief executive officer asked the two executives to resolve this dispute before the upcoming executive team meeting. How would the two executives resolve their differences? The case involves the students in a role play to develop their competence to address typical conflicts between executive team members, by reproducing the complex environment in which executives operate. Students will be assigned the role of the vice-president of legal affairs (9B18M014); the vice-president of sales (9B18M015); or the observer (9B18M016). The authors Louis Hebert and Jean Poitras is affiliated with HEC Montreal.
Authors :: Jacques Neatby, Louis Hebert, Jean Poitras
Swot Analysis of "Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic)" written by Jacques Neatby, Louis Hebert, Jean Poitras includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Vice President facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Decision making, Leadership, Leading teams and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices,
increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Vice President, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Vice President 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Vice President
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Vice President
Strengths Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Vice President in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Vice President has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Vice President to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Vice President is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Learning organization
- Vice President 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 Vice President is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Vice President 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
– Vice President is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Vice President 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Vice President 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Vice President in the sector have low bargaining power. Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Vice President to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Vice President in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Vice President
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Vice President does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Vice President to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Vice President to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Vice President digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Vice President 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.
Weaknesses Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic), it seems that the employees of Vice President 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Vice President 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Vice President is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic), is just above the industry average. Vice President 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic), in the dynamic environment Vice President has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Vice President 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, Jacques Neatby, Louis Hebert, Jean Poitras suggests that, Vice President 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Vice President 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Vice President 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. Vice President 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Vice President 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Vice President 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 - Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) | 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Vice President 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Vice President 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Vice President 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Vice President can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Vice President has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Vice President to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) case study. Vice President can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Vice President can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Vice President is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Vice President 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Vice President to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Vice President 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 Vice President to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Vice President can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
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 Vice President 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 Vice President in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Vice President can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Vice President operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) are -
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.
Increasing wage structure of Vice President
– 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 Vice President.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic), Vice President may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Regulatory challenges
– Vice President 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Vice President 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Vice President has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Vice President needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
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 Vice President.
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 Vice President in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Vice President needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Vice President 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Vice President 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Vice President can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Vice President 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. Vice President can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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 Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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 Vice President needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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