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 - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, 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 -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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.
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.
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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Vice President has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Vice President 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.
Analytics focus
– Vice President is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Jacques Neatby, Louis Hebert, Jean Poitras can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
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.
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.
Training and development
– Vice President has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) 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.
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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Vice President 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 Vice President in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
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.
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 -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Vice President has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) HBR case study mentions - Vice President takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Vice President is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Vice President, firm in the HBR case study Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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.
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 Vice President supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Express Trucking: Executive Team Dynamics (Role Play) (B): Vice-President, Sales (Dominic), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Vice President vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Vice President is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Vice President needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Vice President to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Vice President 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. Vice President can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for 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.
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.
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.
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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Vice President 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Vice President can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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 .
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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Vice President 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 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.
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 Vice President business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Vice President in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
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.
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. Vice President 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.
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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