Swot Analysis of "Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B)" written by Robert L. Simons, Indra A. Reinbergs includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Piece Rock facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Boards, Motivating people, Performance measurement, Strategy execution and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Piece Rock, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Piece Rock 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Piece Rock
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Piece Rock
Strengths Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Piece Rock in Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Piece Rock in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Piece Rock 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Piece Rock digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Piece Rock 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Piece Rock 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.
Analytics focus
– Piece Rock 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 Robert L. Simons, Indra A. Reinbergs 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Piece Rock 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Piece Rock 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 Piece Rock in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Piece Rock
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Piece Rock does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Piece Rock to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Piece Rock to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Piece Rock is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Piece Rock 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 Piece Rock is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) HBR case study mentions - Piece Rock 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B), it seems that the employees of Piece Rock 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Piece Rock, firm in the HBR case study Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Piece Rock 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Robert L. Simons, Indra A. Reinbergs suggests that, Piece Rock 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Piece Rock is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Piece Rock needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Piece Rock to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Piece Rock 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 - Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Piece Rock is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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 Piece Rock has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B), is just above the industry average. Piece Rock 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Piece Rock products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Piece Rock needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) | 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Piece Rock in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Piece Rock 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Piece Rock can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Piece Rock can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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 Piece Rock 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.
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 Piece Rock 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Piece Rock can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Piece Rock 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Piece Rock to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Piece Rock can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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.
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. Piece Rock can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Piece Rock has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Piece Rock to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) case study. Piece Rock can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Piece Rock 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Piece Rock 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 Piece Rock to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Piece Rock can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Piece Rock 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) .
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Piece Rock can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Piece Rock business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Piece Rock 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B), Piece Rock may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Piece Rock is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Piece Rock in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Piece Rock 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Piece Rock
– 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 Piece Rock.
Environmental challenges
– Piece Rock 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. Piece Rock can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting 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 Piece Rock.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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 Cross Country Group: A Piece of the Rock (B) 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 Piece Rock needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.