What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners?
A financial system engaged in active transition from central planning to free market may be dubbed a transition economy. On today's global landscape, there are several important transition economies, all at various stages of transition and with differing degrees of success. Yet, much is not known about this important sector of the world economy. As outside enterprises seek alliances with firms from transition economies, it is important to know what these firms want from alliance partners. To learn more, we conducted a study interviewing managers of private firms from the two largest and most strategically important transition economies: China and Russia. We found that while Chinese and Russian firms often hope for some of the same things as their counterparts in mature economies as regards alliances, they are also interested in other things not normally associated with alliances: political influence, relief from paying bribes, and protection from extortion or even violence. Moreover, we discovered that because of differing institutional conditions in the two countries, Chinese firms are not always looking for the same things from alliances as are Russian firms-in spite of surface similarities between the two economies. Based on these findings, we provide guidelines for firms seeking alliance partners in transition economies, to assist them in determining if an alliance is right for them and planning accordingly.
Authors :: Michael N. Young, David Ahlstrom, Garry D. Bruton, Yuri Rubanik
Swot Analysis of "What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners?" written by Michael N. Young, David Ahlstrom, Garry D. Bruton, Yuri Rubanik includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Economies Transition facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Joint ventures and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices,
increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Economies Transition, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Economies Transition 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Economies Transition
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 Economies Transition
Strengths What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Economies Transition in What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Economies Transition is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Economies Transition 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 Economies Transition in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Economies Transition in the sector have low bargaining power. What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Economies Transition to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Economies Transition 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
– Economies Transition has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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)
– Economies Transition 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Economies Transition 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 Economies Transition is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Economies Transition is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Economies Transition in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Economies Transition has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Economies Transition 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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.
Organizational Resilience of Economies Transition
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Economies Transition does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Economies Transition 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Economies Transition 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Economies Transition is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Economies Transition needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Economies Transition to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Economies Transition 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners?, in the dynamic environment Economies Transition has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Economies Transition has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Economies Transition products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Economies Transition needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? HBR case study mentions - Economies Transition 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Economies Transition has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Economies Transition even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Economies Transition 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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 Economies Transition 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Economies Transition is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? | 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Economies Transition 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.
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. Economies Transition can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Economies Transition is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Economies Transition can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Economies Transition operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Economies Transition 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 Economies Transition to increase its market reach. Economies Transition 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Economies Transition 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Economies Transition 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Economies Transition 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Economies Transition 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Economies Transition to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Economies Transition 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 Economies Transition to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Economies Transition 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 Economies Transition has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Economies Transition to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? case study. Economies Transition can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? are -
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 Economies Transition in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Economies Transition 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.
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. Economies Transition 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. Economies Transition can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Economies Transition 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Economies Transition has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Economies Transition 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.
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. Economies Transition 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 Economies Transition.
Regulatory challenges
– Economies Transition 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.
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 Economies Transition business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners?, Economies Transition 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Economies Transition 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. Economies Transition can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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 What do Firms From Transition Economies Want From Their Strategic Alliance Partners? 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 Economies Transition needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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