Swot Analysis of "Egypt: The End of the Revolution?" written by Meg Rithmire includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Egypt Revolution facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Egypt: The End of the Revolution? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Egypt: The End of the Revolution? casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Egypt: The End of the Revolution?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Egypt: The End of the Revolution? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Egypt Revolution, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Egypt: The End of the Revolution? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Egypt Revolution
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 Egypt Revolution
Strengths Egypt: The End of the Revolution? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Egypt Revolution in Egypt: The End of the Revolution? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Egypt Revolution is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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.
High brand equity
– Egypt Revolution has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Egypt Revolution to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt Revolution in the sector have low bargaining power. Egypt: The End of the Revolution? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Egypt Revolution to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt Revolution in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt Revolution is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Egypt: The End of the Revolution? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Egypt Revolution 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Egypt Revolution is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Egypt: The End of the Revolution? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Egypt Revolution has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Egypt Revolution 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.
Training and development
– Egypt Revolution has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Egypt: The End of the Revolution? Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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.
Weaknesses Egypt: The End of the Revolution? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Egypt: The End of the Revolution? are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Egypt Revolution is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Egypt: The End of the Revolution? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Egypt Revolution 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Egypt: The End of the Revolution? HBR case study mentions - Egypt Revolution 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt Revolution supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Egypt: The End of the Revolution?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Egypt Revolution vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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 Egypt Revolution has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Egypt Revolution, firm in the HBR case study Egypt: The End of the Revolution? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Egypt: The End of the Revolution?, in the dynamic environment Egypt Revolution has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Egypt Revolution has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Meg Rithmire suggests that, Egypt Revolution 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, Egypt Revolution 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.
Opportunities Egypt: The End of the Revolution? | 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Egypt Revolution can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Egypt Revolution operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Egypt Revolution has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Egypt Revolution to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Egypt: The End of the Revolution? case study. Egypt Revolution 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
– Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Egypt Revolution to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Egypt Revolution can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Egypt Revolution 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Egypt Revolution can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Egypt Revolution can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Buying journey improvements
– Egypt Revolution can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Egypt Revolution 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Egypt Revolution can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Egypt Revolution 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.
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. Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt Revolution in the consumer business. Now Egypt Revolution can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Egypt Revolution 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, Egypt: The End of the Revolution?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Egypt: The End of the Revolution? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Egypt: The End of the Revolution? are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Egypt Revolution is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Egypt Revolution 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. Egypt Revolution 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? .
Regulatory challenges
– Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt Revolution in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Egypt Revolution 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 Egypt Revolution 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.
Environmental challenges
– Egypt Revolution 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. Egypt Revolution can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Increasing wage structure of Egypt Revolution
– 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 Egypt Revolution.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Egypt: The End of the Revolution?, Egypt Revolution 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 .
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. Egypt Revolution needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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 Egypt: The End of the Revolution? 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 Egypt Revolution needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
