Can the Eurozone Survive? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Can the Eurozone Survive?
The sovereign debt crisis that took Greece by storm in 2010 began to spread to other European markets. Within a few months Ireland and Portugal had also lost access to the sovereign debt markets and had to rely on supranational loans for their financing. The risk of further contagion was clear and present. Political leaders continued to seek measures to stem the crisis and to avoid the larger economies of Spain and Italy becoming involved. The European financial system became strained. Banks were found to be undercapitalized and began to ration credit to the economy. The European Central Bank intervened to provide liquidity to the system in order to avoid a credit crunch. Could the eurozone survive the storm?
Swot Analysis of "Can the Eurozone Survive?" written by Dante Roscini, Jonathan Schlefer includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Eurozone Sovereign facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Can the Eurozone Survive? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Costs, Currency, Financial analysis, Government, International business, Recession and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Can the Eurozone Survive? casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Can the Eurozone Survive?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Can the Eurozone Survive? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eurozone Sovereign, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eurozone Sovereign 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Can the Eurozone Survive? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eurozone Sovereign
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 Eurozone Sovereign
Strengths Can the Eurozone Survive? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eurozone Sovereign in Can the Eurozone Survive? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Eurozone Sovereign is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Can the Eurozone Survive? 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eurozone Sovereign 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Eurozone Sovereign has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eurozone Sovereign to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Eurozone Sovereign 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 Eurozone Sovereign is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Can the Eurozone Survive? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eurozone Sovereign 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.
Training and development
– Eurozone Sovereign has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Can the Eurozone Survive? 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eurozone Sovereign in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eurozone Sovereign is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Can the Eurozone Survive? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eurozone Sovereign 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Eurozone Sovereign is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Can the Eurozone Survive? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eurozone Sovereign 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eurozone Sovereign in the sector have low bargaining power. Can the Eurozone Survive? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eurozone Sovereign to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Can the Eurozone Survive? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Can the Eurozone Survive? are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Can the Eurozone Survive?, in the dynamic environment Eurozone Sovereign has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eurozone Sovereign has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Eurozone Sovereign 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Dante Roscini, Jonathan Schlefer suggests that, Eurozone Sovereign is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Eurozone Sovereign 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eurozone Sovereign 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.
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 Eurozone Sovereign supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Can the Eurozone Survive?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eurozone Sovereign vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Eurozone Sovereign has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Can the Eurozone Survive? 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eurozone Sovereign is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Eurozone Sovereign is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Can the Eurozone Survive? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eurozone Sovereign 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 - Can the Eurozone Survive? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Eurozone Sovereign, firm in the HBR case study Can the Eurozone Survive? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Can the Eurozone Survive? | 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eurozone Sovereign 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Eurozone Sovereign 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eurozone Sovereign to increase its market reach. Eurozone Sovereign 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eurozone Sovereign is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Can the Eurozone Survive? 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eurozone Sovereign 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.
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. Eurozone Sovereign can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eurozone Sovereign can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eurozone Sovereign operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
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 Eurozone Sovereign 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.
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 Eurozone Sovereign in the consumer business. Now Eurozone Sovereign can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eurozone Sovereign 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eurozone Sovereign 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.
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. Eurozone Sovereign can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eurozone Sovereign 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 Eurozone Sovereign to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Can the Eurozone Survive? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Can the Eurozone Survive? are -
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. Eurozone Sovereign needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Eurozone Sovereign.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eurozone Sovereign 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eurozone Sovereign is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Can the Eurozone Survive?, Eurozone Sovereign 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 .
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 Eurozone Sovereign in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Eurozone Sovereign 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.
Increasing wage structure of Eurozone Sovereign
– 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 Eurozone Sovereign.
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. Eurozone Sovereign can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Eurozone Sovereign with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Eurozone Sovereign business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eurozone Sovereign has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eurozone Sovereign 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Can the Eurozone Survive? 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? 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 Can the Eurozone Survive? 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 Eurozone Sovereign needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
