MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn
Please note, it is recommended that this case be used with the accompanying spreadsheetBill Young, president and CEO of MTI was in Victoria, BC at the time of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Bill knew that his Seattle, Washington-based market research firm faced numerous challenges in the aftermath of the attacks. The economic turmoil which was certain to follow a national disaster of this magnitude would have a serious impact on the business. This was particularly true since reliable market research depended heavily on consumer confidence and perceptions about the future. Young was unsure how to respond to the challenges he faced. Bill Young is attempting to develop revised cash projections and to determine whether staffing cuts and other cost-saving measures will be needed in order to maintain the financial health of the firm.
Swot Analysis of "MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn" written by Gerald M. Myers, William W. Young includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mti Attacks facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Business models and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mti Attacks, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mti Attacks 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mti Attacks
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 Mti Attacks
Strengths MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mti Attacks in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Mti Attacks has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mti Attacks to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mti Attacks is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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
– Mti Attacks is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mti Attacks 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.
Organizational Resilience of Mti Attacks
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Mti Attacks does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mti Attacks digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mti Attacks 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mti Attacks has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mti Attacks 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.
Learning organization
- Mti Attacks 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 Mti Attacks is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mti Attacks in the sector have low bargaining power. MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mti Attacks to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Mti Attacks is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Mti Attacks has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mti Attacks 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Mti Attacks products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mti Attacks needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mti Attacks 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn HBR case study mentions - Mti Attacks 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Mti Attacks 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn, it seems that the employees of Mti Attacks 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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 Mti Attacks 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn, in the dynamic environment Mti Attacks has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Mti Attacks has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Mti Attacks supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mti Attacks vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mti Attacks 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mti Attacks 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mti Attacks is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn | 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mti Attacks to increase its market reach. Mti Attacks 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mti Attacks 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mti Attacks 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mti Attacks 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mti Attacks 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
– Mti Attacks 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mti Attacks to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mti Attacks 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mti Attacks can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mti Attacks operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mti Attacks is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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.
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. Mti Attacks can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Mti Attacks 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.
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 Mti Attacks in the consumer business. Now Mti Attacks can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Mti Attacks 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. Mti Attacks 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.
Threats MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn are -
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. Mti Attacks 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn, Mti Attacks 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 .
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. Mti Attacks needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Mti Attacks business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Mti Attacks
– 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 Mti Attacks.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mti Attacks 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn .
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mti Attacks is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mti Attacks 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.
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. Mti Attacks can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Mti Attacks.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mti Attacks has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mti Attacks 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.
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 Mti Attacks in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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 MTI: Cash Budgeting in Times of a Sharp Business Downturn 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 Mti Attacks needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.