Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C
This case tells the story of Alain St-Pierre, fire captain and the most decorated firefighter in Montreal's history, from childhood through retirement. It describes the key points of Alain's career, his heroic feats as firefighter, his influence as lieutenant and captain, and his failures. Alain's management "philosophy" and personality traits are also discussed.
Authors :: Cyrille Sardais, Gabriel Tessier, Jeremie Scraire-Laframboise
Swot Analysis of "Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C" written by Cyrille Sardais, Gabriel Tessier, Jeremie Scraire-Laframboise includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Alain's Firefighter facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Psychology and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Alain's Firefighter, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Alain's Firefighter 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Alain's Firefighter
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 Alain's Firefighter
Strengths Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Alain's Firefighter in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Alain's Firefighter 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Alain's Firefighter in the sector have low bargaining power. Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Alain's Firefighter to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Alain's Firefighter is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Alain's Firefighter is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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
– Alain's Firefighter has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Alain's Firefighter to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Alain's Firefighter digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Alain's Firefighter 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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.
Learning organization
- Alain's Firefighter 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 Alain's Firefighter is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Alain's Firefighter 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 Cyrille Sardais, Gabriel Tessier, Jeremie Scraire-Laframboise 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Alain's Firefighter 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.
Training and development
– Alain's Firefighter has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Alain's Firefighter 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Alain's Firefighter supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Alain's Firefighter vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Alain's Firefighter 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Alain's Firefighter 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Alain's Firefighter 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 - Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C, 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C, is just above the industry average. Alain's Firefighter 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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 Alain's Firefighter has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Alain's Firefighter products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Alain's Firefighter needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C, it seems that the employees of Alain's Firefighter 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Alain's Firefighter is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Alain's Firefighter is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Alain's Firefighter needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Alain's Firefighter to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C | 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Alain's Firefighter 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Alain's Firefighter is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Alain's Firefighter 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.
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. Alain's Firefighter 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. Alain's Firefighter 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.
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. Alain's Firefighter can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Alain's Firefighter 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 Alain's Firefighter to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Alain's Firefighter can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Alain's Firefighter operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Alain's Firefighter 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Alain's Firefighter to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Alain's Firefighter 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.
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 Alain's Firefighter in the consumer business. Now Alain's Firefighter can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Alain's Firefighter can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Alain's Firefighter 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. Alain's Firefighter can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Alain's Firefighter 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.
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. Alain's Firefighter 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 Alain's Firefighter is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Alain's Firefighter 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.
Increasing wage structure of Alain's Firefighter
– 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 Alain's Firefighter.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Alain's Firefighter 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Alain's Firefighter 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
– Alain's Firefighter 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.
Environmental challenges
– Alain's Firefighter 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. Alain's Firefighter can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Alain's Firefighter has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Alain's Firefighter 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Alain's Firefighter 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C .
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 Alain's Firefighter business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Alain's Firefighter in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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 Alain St-Pierre: The Man Who Fought More Than Fire - Part C 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 Alain's Firefighter needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
