WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma
Supplement to case IN1456. Recent MBA graduate Majed finds his dream job: high-tech, entrepreneurial, senior, social - contributing to the economy of Palestine, a cause close to his heart. But the new CEO of WebTeb, an online medical information service in Arabic, finds it more challenging than expected. Recruiting IT talent in Palestine is particularly tough. Eventually, his team finds an android developer to help them launch, but then comes a fateful phone call. Majed has infringed an unwritten policy of Palestinian tech companies - never to poach each other's employees. The rationale behind this is to keep wages low and thus boost an industry with potential to transform the local economy. The injured party, an IT outsourcing company, asks Majed to rescind the offer. If he refuses, they threaten to put WebTeb out of business by offering better salaries to his entire web-development team. Case B shows how Majed resolves the dilemma.
Swot Analysis of "WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma" written by N. Craig Smith, Elin Williams includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Majed Webteb facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competition, Ethics, Human resource management, Internet, IT, Labor and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Majed Webteb, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Majed Webteb 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Majed Webteb
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 Majed Webteb
Strengths WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Majed Webteb in WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Majed Webteb
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Majed Webteb does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Majed Webteb digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Majed Webteb 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.
High brand equity
– Majed Webteb has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Majed Webteb to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Majed Webteb 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 Majed Webteb is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Majed Webteb 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Majed Webteb 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 N. Craig Smith, Elin Williams 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
– Majed Webteb is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Majed Webteb 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Majed Webteb 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 Majed Webteb in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Majed Webteb is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Majed Webteb has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Weaknesses WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma, is just above the industry average. Majed Webteb 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Majed Webteb 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 Majed Webteb, firm in the HBR case study WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Majed Webteb 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma, in the dynamic environment Majed Webteb has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Majed Webteb has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma HBR case study mentions - Majed Webteb 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Majed Webteb products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Majed Webteb needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma, 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 Majed Webteb 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Majed Webteb has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Majed Webteb is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma | 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma are -
Buying journey improvements
– Majed Webteb can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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.
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. Majed Webteb can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Majed Webteb 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Majed Webteb 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.
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. Majed Webteb 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. Majed Webteb 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 Majed Webteb 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Majed Webteb to increase its market reach. Majed Webteb 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Majed Webteb can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Majed Webteb operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Majed Webteb 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Majed Webteb 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 Majed Webteb 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Majed Webteb can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Majed Webteb 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Majed Webteb to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma are -
Environmental challenges
– Majed Webteb 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. Majed Webteb can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 Majed Webteb.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Majed Webteb has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Majed Webteb 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Majed Webteb 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma, Majed Webteb 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 .
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. Majed Webteb 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.
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. Majed Webteb needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Majed Webteb business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Majed Webteb with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Majed Webteb 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma .
Increasing wage structure of Majed Webteb
– 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 Majed Webteb.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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 WebTeb (B): A Very Palestinian Dilemma 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 Majed Webteb needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
