The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream"
In 2010, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison operator in the U.S., was considering expansion options. The company's largest customers, federal and state governments, were under economic pressure to reduce the incarceration rate and lower operating costs, potentially jeopardizing CCA's profits. Should CCA follow its competitor's footsteps and expand overseas? Or could it count on an ever-increasing population of U.S. prisoners to fuel continued growth?
Swot Analysis of "The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream"" written by Rafael Di Tella, Laura Winig includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cca Prisoners facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Technology and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream"
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cca Prisoners, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cca Prisoners 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cca Prisoners
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 Cca Prisoners
Strengths The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cca Prisoners in The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cca Prisoners to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cca Prisoners to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cca Prisoners in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cca Prisoners 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Cca Prisoners is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cca Prisoners is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cca Prisoners digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cca Prisoners 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
– Cca Prisoners has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cca Prisoners 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.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Cca Prisoners 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 Cca Prisoners in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Cca Prisoners has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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.
High brand equity
– Cca Prisoners has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cca Prisoners to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cca Prisoners 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.
Weaknesses The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" are -
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 Cca Prisoners supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream", it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cca Prisoners vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cca Prisoners 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cca Prisoners 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cca Prisoners 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 - The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream", it seems that the employees of Cca Prisoners 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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 Cca Prisoners has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Cca Prisoners, firm in the HBR case study The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cca Prisoners is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cca Prisoners 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream", is just above the industry average. Cca Prisoners 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cca Prisoners 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.
Opportunities The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" | 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cca Prisoners 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cca Prisoners to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cca Prisoners can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cca Prisoners operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cca Prisoners 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 Cca Prisoners to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Cca Prisoners can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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 Cca Prisoners to increase its market reach. Cca Prisoners 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cca Prisoners 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Cca Prisoners 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cca Prisoners 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.
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 Cca Prisoners 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cca Prisoners 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 Cca Prisoners has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Cca Prisoners to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" case study. Cca Prisoners can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Cca Prisoners can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Cca Prisoners in the consumer business. Now Cca Prisoners can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cca Prisoners has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cca Prisoners 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.
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 Cca Prisoners.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cca Prisoners is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cca Prisoners with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Cca Prisoners in the Global Business 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream", Cca Prisoners may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cca Prisoners 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" .
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 Cca Prisoners 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. Cca Prisoners can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Cca Prisoners 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.
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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Cca Prisoners 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cca Prisoners 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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 The Market for Prisoners: Business, Crime and Punishment in the "American Dream" 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 Cca Prisoners needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.