SMRT: Getting Back on Track SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of SMRT: Getting Back on Track
On July 7, 2015, a power fault during the evening commute led to a system-wide disruption on SMRT, Singapore's heavily used mass rapid transit lines. Train service on both lines was shut down for more than two hours, affecting more than 413,000 commuters. The public was outraged at the scale of the breakdown and how ineffectively it was handled. Detailed investigations revealed the breakdown to be a result of maintenance lapses, and SMRT was criticized for its failure to provide clear and timely information and instructions to passengers. Following the breakdown, the company embarked on a service recovery process encompassing various new initiatives. This case illustrates the tensions SMRT faced during and after the breakdown, and its journey to recover the public's confidence in is transit services. Thompson S.H. Teo is affiliated with National University of Singapore.
Authors :: Thompson SH Teo, Cherie Heng, Cheryl Lee, Zhuoran Liu
Swot Analysis of "SMRT: Getting Back on Track" written by Thompson SH Teo, Cherie Heng, Cheryl Lee, Zhuoran Liu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Smrt Breakdown facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in SMRT: Getting Back on Track case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Supply chain and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the SMRT: Getting Back on Track casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SMRT: Getting Back on Track
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in SMRT: Getting Back on Track case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Smrt Breakdown, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Smrt Breakdown 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in SMRT: Getting Back on Track case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Smrt Breakdown
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Smrt Breakdown
Strengths SMRT: Getting Back on Track | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Smrt Breakdown in SMRT: Getting Back on Track Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Smrt Breakdown is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Smrt Breakdown in the sector have low bargaining power. SMRT: Getting Back on Track has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Smrt Breakdown to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Smrt Breakdown 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 Smrt Breakdown in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Smrt Breakdown is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in SMRT: Getting Back on Track Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Smrt Breakdown 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 Smrt Breakdown is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in SMRT: Getting Back on Track Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Smrt Breakdown digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Smrt Breakdown 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Smrt Breakdown is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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.
High brand equity
– Smrt Breakdown has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Smrt Breakdown to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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.
Analytics focus
– Smrt Breakdown 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 Thompson SH Teo, Cherie Heng, Cheryl Lee, Zhuoran Liu 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.
Training and development
– Smrt Breakdown has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Smrt Breakdown in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses SMRT: Getting Back on Track | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SMRT: Getting Back on Track are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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 Smrt Breakdown 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Smrt Breakdown 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 Smrt Breakdown products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Smrt Breakdown 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track, in the dynamic environment Smrt Breakdown has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Smrt Breakdown has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study SMRT: Getting Back on Track, is just above the industry average. Smrt Breakdown 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Thompson SH Teo, Cherie Heng, Cheryl Lee, Zhuoran Liu suggests that, Smrt Breakdown 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Smrt Breakdown 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Smrt Breakdown, firm in the HBR case study SMRT: Getting Back on Track needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study SMRT: Getting Back on Track, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As SMRT: Getting Back on Track HBR case study mentions - Smrt Breakdown 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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 Smrt Breakdown has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities SMRT: Getting Back on Track | 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Smrt Breakdown in the consumer business. Now Smrt Breakdown can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Smrt Breakdown 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
– Smrt Breakdown can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Smrt Breakdown 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Smrt Breakdown 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 Smrt Breakdown to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Smrt Breakdown to increase its market reach. Smrt Breakdown 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Smrt Breakdown 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
– Smrt Breakdown 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Smrt Breakdown is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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, Smrt Breakdown 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, SMRT: Getting Back on Track, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Smrt Breakdown can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Smrt Breakdown operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Smrt Breakdown 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 Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Smrt Breakdown can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats SMRT: Getting Back on Track External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study SMRT: Getting Back on Track are -
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. Smrt Breakdown 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Smrt Breakdown is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Smrt Breakdown 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.
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 Smrt Breakdown.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study SMRT: Getting Back on Track, Smrt Breakdown may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
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 Smrt Breakdown business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Smrt Breakdown 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Smrt Breakdown with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Smrt Breakdown needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Smrt Breakdown 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. Smrt Breakdown can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Smrt Breakdown can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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 SMRT: Getting Back on Track 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 Smrt Breakdown needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.