Case Study Description of Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A)
This case provides an opportunity to explore very simple job-order costing. It also provides a chance to discuss contribution analysis in the context of a pricing decision and the absorption of manufacturing overhead costs by the various jobs the company has under contract.
Swot Analysis of "Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A)" written by Francis Spreng includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lambeth Cabinets facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lambeth Cabinets, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lambeth Cabinets 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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lambeth Cabinets
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 Lambeth Cabinets
Strengths Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lambeth Cabinets in Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Lambeth Cabinets 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 Lambeth Cabinets is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lambeth Cabinets in the sector have low bargaining power. Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lambeth Cabinets to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lambeth Cabinets 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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (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.
Innovation driven organization
– Lambeth Cabinets is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lambeth Cabinets is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Lambeth Cabinets is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Analytics focus
– Lambeth Cabinets 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 Francis Spreng 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lambeth Cabinets in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Lambeth Cabinets has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Lambeth Cabinets to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lambeth Cabinets has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Weaknesses Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) 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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lambeth Cabinets is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A), it seems that the employees of Lambeth Cabinets 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A), 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Lambeth Cabinets 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Francis Spreng suggests that, Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lambeth Cabinets 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 - Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) HBR case study mentions - Lambeth Cabinets 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.
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 Lambeth Cabinets supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Lambeth Cabinets vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lambeth Cabinets is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A), is just above the industry average. Lambeth Cabinets 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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) 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. Lambeth Cabinets can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lambeth Cabinets can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lambeth Cabinets 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 Lambeth Cabinets to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Lambeth Cabinets can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lambeth Cabinets to increase its market reach. Lambeth Cabinets 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 Lambeth Cabinets in the consumer business. Now Lambeth Cabinets can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lambeth Cabinets 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
– Lambeth Cabinets 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.
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 Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lambeth Cabinets 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, Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A) are -
Environmental challenges
– Lambeth Cabinets 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. Lambeth Cabinets can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
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 Lambeth Cabinets in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Lambeth Custom Cabinets (A), Lambeth Cabinets 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 .
Regulatory challenges
– Lambeth Cabinets 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.
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 Lambeth Cabinets business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Lambeth Cabinets with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 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. Lambeth Cabinets needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Lambeth Cabinets
– 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 Lambeth Cabinets.
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. Lambeth Cabinets can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lambeth Cabinets is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Lambeth Cabinets 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lambeth Custom Cabinets (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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (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 Lambeth Custom Cabinets (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 Lambeth Cabinets needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.