Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility
Ford Motor Company's Social Sustainability Manager, David Berdish, faces the challenge of positioning Ford on the forefront of the new global transportation industry in a sustainable way while leveraging Ford's leadership in the automotive industry. This case takes a holistic look at the global transportation industry but places emphasis on mega-cities in bustling emerging markets and their increasingly congested transportation systems. With the company's strategic mobility initiative in place and Ford's Blueprint for Mobility launched as of February 2012, the question of resource and technology allocation and strategic positioning among traditional and new (car-sharing, traffic data management) competitors becomes critical to success. Students must decide how to balance innovation, market positioning, and long-term vision with near-term strategy to better serve the next generation of customers on multiple levels - access, community, and environmental.
Swot Analysis of "Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility" written by Andrew Hoffman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ford's Mobility facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, Leadership, Marketing and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ford's Mobility, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ford's Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ford's Mobility
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 Ford's Mobility
Strengths Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ford's Mobility in Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ford's Mobility has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ford's Mobility 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ford's Mobility in the sector have low bargaining power. Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ford's Mobility to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ford's Mobility digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ford's Mobility has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ford's Mobility is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ford's Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Ford's Mobility is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Ford's Mobility is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Andrew Hoffman can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ford's Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Ford's Mobility
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Ford's Mobility does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Ford's Mobility is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Ford's Mobility 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.
Training and development
– Ford's Mobility has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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.
Weaknesses Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility, it seems that the employees of Ford's Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Ford's Mobility has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ford's Mobility 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ford's Mobility 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 - Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility, is just above the industry average. Ford's Mobility 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility, in the dynamic environment Ford's Mobility has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ford's Mobility has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ford's Mobility 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ford's Mobility is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Ford's Mobility needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ford's Mobility to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ford's Mobility 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. Ford's Mobility 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ford's Mobility is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ford's Mobility products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ford's Mobility needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility | 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ford's Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ford's Mobility to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ford's Mobility 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.
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. Ford's Mobility 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. Ford's Mobility 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ford's Mobility 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ford's Mobility can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ford's Mobility operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Ford's Mobility can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Ford's Mobility 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ford's Mobility has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Ford's Mobility to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility case study. Ford's Mobility can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Ford's Mobility 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ford's Mobility can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ford's Mobility 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ford's Mobility 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. Ford's Mobility can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ford's Mobility with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Ford's Mobility can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Ford's Mobility 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, Ford's Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility .
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ford's Mobility 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ford's Mobility 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.
Increasing wage structure of Ford's Mobility
– 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 Ford's Mobility.
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 Ford's Mobility in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Ford's Mobility 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.
Environmental challenges
– Ford's Mobility 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. Ford's Mobility can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ford's Mobility 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ford's Mobility has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ford's Mobility 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Blueprint for Ford's Future: From Personal Automobiles to Mobility 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 Ford's Mobility needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
