Public Provision of Water SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Public Provision of Water
This note is used in the Darden course elective, "The Economics of Water." In many cities, water, sewage, and electricity utilities are city-owned, not-for-profit institutions. Indeed, a 2011 survey of 330 major cities worldwide published by Global Water Intelligence reveals that almost 85% of the water services of the cities surveyed are publicly managed; public-private partnerships account for 5%, and about 10% are privately run. As this note argues, there is a reason for this institutional setup.
Swot Analysis of "Public Provision of Water" written by Peter Debaere includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Water Cities facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Public Provision of Water case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Public Provision of Water casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Public Provision of Water
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Public Provision of Water case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Water Cities, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Water Cities 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 Public Provision of Water can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Public Provision of Water case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Water Cities
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Water Cities
Strengths Public Provision of Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Water Cities in Public Provision of Water Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Public Provision of Water 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
– Water Cities is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Public Provision of Water 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
– Water Cities has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Public Provision of Water 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Water Cities 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 Water Cities 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Water Cities has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Water Cities 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Water Cities in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Water Cities 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 Water Cities is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Public Provision of Water Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Water Cities 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 Public Provision of Water HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Water Cities has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Water Cities to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Water Cities in the sector have low bargaining power. Public Provision of Water has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Water Cities to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Water Cities is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Public Provision of Water 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.
Weaknesses Public Provision of Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Public Provision of Water are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Public Provision of Water, it seems that the employees of Water Cities 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 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 Water Cities supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Public Provision of Water, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Water Cities vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Public Provision of Water, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Public Provision of Water 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 Public Provision of Water can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Water Cities is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Water Cities 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Public Provision of Water 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 Water Cities 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Water Cities 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Public Provision of Water, is just above the industry average. Water Cities 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 Water Cities is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Water Cities needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Water Cities to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Water Cities 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Public Provision of Water 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 Water Cities has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Public Provision of Water | 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 Public Provision of Water are -
Loyalty marketing
– Water Cities 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Water Cities 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Water Cities 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 Global Business segment.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Water Cities in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Water Cities 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Water Cities has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Water Cities to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Public Provision of Water case study. Water Cities can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Water Cities 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 Public Provision of Water - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Water Cities to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Water Cities can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Water Cities can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Water Cities operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Water Cities is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Public Provision of Water 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Water Cities 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, Public Provision of Water, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Water Cities can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Water Cities can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Public Provision of Water External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Public Provision of Water are -
Increasing wage structure of Water Cities
– 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 Water Cities.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Water Cities with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Water Cities 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.
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 Water Cities.
Regulatory challenges
– Water Cities 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 Global Business industry regulations.
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 Water Cities in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Water Cities 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 Public Provision of Water .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Water Cities has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Water Cities needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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.
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 Water Cities business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Water Cities can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Water Cities in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Water Cities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Public Provision of Water 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 Public Provision of Water 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 Public Provision of Water 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 Public Provision of Water 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 Public Provision of Water 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 Water Cities needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.