Case Study Description of Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A)
A year after Norwegian grocery chain REMA 1000 adopted Workplace, Facebook's corporate social media network, CHRO Tore Hoylie is asked to evaluate its impact on company culture and communication. Almost 90% of the workforce is engaged with the platform, which they use to communicate with colleagues across the decentralized chain of independent outlets. However, there are some concerns that the site is overloaded with information and difficult to navigate. Hoylie must decide whether to try to improve the platform or look for an alternative. If REMA keeps Workplace, how can REMA improve the way employees interact with it?
Swot Analysis of "Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A)" written by Tatiana Sandino, Olivia Hull includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Rema Hoylie facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Knowledge management, Networking, Social platforms, Workspaces and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rema Hoylie, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rema Hoylie 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rema Hoylie
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Rema Hoylie
Strengths Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rema Hoylie in Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Rema Hoylie is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Rema Hoylie 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 Tatiana Sandino, Olivia Hull 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
– Rema Hoylie has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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.
Learning organization
- Rema Hoylie 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 Rema Hoylie is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Rema Hoylie 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Rema Hoylie is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Rema Hoylie in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rema Hoylie 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Rema Hoylie has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rema Hoylie to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Rema Hoylie
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Rema Hoylie does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Rema Hoylie 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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.
Weaknesses Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) HBR case study mentions - Rema Hoylie 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Rema Hoylie 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Rema Hoylie products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Rema Hoylie 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Organizational Development 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Rema Hoylie 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 - Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Rema Hoylie 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rema Hoylie 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Rema Hoylie 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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 Rema Hoylie has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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 Rema Hoylie 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A), is just above the industry average. Rema Hoylie 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.
Opportunities Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) | 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Rema Hoylie 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. Rema Hoylie 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Rema Hoylie 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Rema Hoylie 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
– Rema Hoylie can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rema Hoylie 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rema Hoylie in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rema Hoylie 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Rema Hoylie to increase its market reach. Rema Hoylie 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.
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 Rema Hoylie in the consumer business. Now Rema Hoylie 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 Rema Hoylie can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rema Hoylie 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 Rema Hoylie 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, Rema Hoylie can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rema Hoylie operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Rema Hoylie can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development 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.
Threats Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A), Rema Hoylie may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
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 Rema Hoylie in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Rema Hoylie needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rema Hoylie 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) .
Increasing wage structure of Rema Hoylie
– 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 Rema Hoylie.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rema Hoylie is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Rema Hoylie.
Regulatory challenges
– Rema Hoylie 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 Organizational Development industry regulations.
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 Rema Hoylie business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Rema Hoylie 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Rema Hoylie with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rema Hoylie has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rema Hoylie needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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 Knowledge Sharing at REMA 1000 (A) 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 Rema Hoylie needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.