Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem
Governing a city is arguably one of the most complex management tasks facing organizational leaders. Based on an analysis of Vienna, London, and Chicago, this article demonstrates that city leaders treat cities as ecosystems, structured and governed either as "extended enterprises" where inputs from specialized organizations are coordinated and integrated into the final service or as "platform markets" where direct interactions between third-party service providers and citizens are facilitated by the city leaders. If cities are viewed as the "ecosystem of ecosystems," then successful city governance requires an orchestration approach where leaders choose the appropriate structure and manage the ecosystem dynamically in a constantly changing environment.
Authors :: Ivanka Visnjic, Carmelo Cennamo, Andy Neely, Nikola Visnjic
Swot Analysis of "Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem" written by Ivanka Visnjic, Carmelo Cennamo, Andy Neely, Nikola Visnjic includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that City Ecosystem facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Government, Innovation and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the City Ecosystem, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which City Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of City Ecosystem
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 City Ecosystem
Strengths Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of City Ecosystem in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled City Ecosystem to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped City Ecosystem to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the City Ecosystem 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.
Innovation driven organization
– City Ecosystem is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- City Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– City Ecosystem is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of City Ecosystem in the sector have low bargaining power. Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps City Ecosystem to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– City Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– City Ecosystem has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– City Ecosystem has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. City Ecosystem 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– City Ecosystem is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of City Ecosystem in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem HBR case study mentions - City Ecosystem 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, City Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem, is just above the industry average. City Ecosystem 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, City Ecosystem 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem, it seems that the employees of City Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem, in the dynamic environment City Ecosystem has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. City Ecosystem has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at City Ecosystem 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of City Ecosystem is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. City Ecosystem needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help City Ecosystem to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem | 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for City Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of City Ecosystem has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help City Ecosystem to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem case study. City Ecosystem can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– City Ecosystem 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.
Buying journey improvements
– City Ecosystem can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at City Ecosystem 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help City Ecosystem to increase its market reach. City Ecosystem 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.
Loyalty marketing
– City Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem 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, City Ecosystem 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, Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– City Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help City Ecosystem to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. City Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for City Ecosystem 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.
Threats Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem, City Ecosystem 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– City Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of City Ecosystem
– 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 City Ecosystem.
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 City Ecosystem.
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 City Ecosystem business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. City Ecosystem 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.
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. City Ecosystem can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– City Ecosystem 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. City Ecosystem can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, City Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that City Ecosystem is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for City Ecosystem 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 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. City Ecosystem needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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 Governing the City: Unleashing Value from the Business Ecosystem 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 City Ecosystem needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
