Swot Analysis of "Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version" written by Robert S. Kaplan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sippican Chinese facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Budgeting, Costs, Marketing, Strategic planning and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sippican Chinese, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sippican Chinese
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 Sippican Chinese
Strengths Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sippican Chinese in Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Chinese is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Chinese in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Sippican Chinese has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sippican Chinese has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sippican Chinese has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sippican Chinese digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sippican Chinese 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sippican Chinese
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sippican Chinese does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Sippican Chinese is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Chinese in the sector have low bargaining power. Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sippican Chinese to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sippican Chinese is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sippican Chinese is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version, is just above the industry average. Sippican Chinese 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sippican Chinese is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Sippican Chinese needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sippican Chinese to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Chinese has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version, in the dynamic environment Sippican Chinese has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sippican Chinese has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sippican Chinese is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sippican Chinese has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sippican Chinese is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version, it seems that the employees of Sippican Chinese 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sippican Chinese 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sippican Chinese 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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.
Opportunities Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version | 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sippican Chinese can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sippican Chinese can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Sippican Chinese to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sippican Chinese 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sippican Chinese can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sippican Chinese operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Chinese to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sippican Chinese is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sippican Chinese has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Sippican Chinese to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version case study. Sippican Chinese can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Sippican Chinese 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 Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sippican Chinese 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. Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Chinese 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sippican Chinese can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sippican Chinese 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sippican Chinese to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version, Sippican Chinese 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 .
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. Sippican Chinese 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sippican Chinese 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.
Increasing wage structure of Sippican Chinese
– 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 Sippican Chinese.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sippican Chinese with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Sippican Chinese business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sippican Chinese is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sippican Chinese 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sippican Chinese has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sippican Chinese needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sippican Chinese 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sippican Chinese in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
Environmental challenges
– Sippican Chinese 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. Sippican Chinese can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Corp. (B), Chinese Version 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 Sippican Chinese needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.