Case Study Description of Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened
Coral reef ecosystems are beautiful and vibrant underwater communities inhabited by a spectacularly diverse and abundant array of organisms essential to human needs. Reefs are severely threatened worldwide-estimates are that one-fifth of coral reefs have already been lost or severely damaged, and the rest are expected to disappear before the end of this century. The intrinsic value of coral reefs is incalculable and immense, and this technical note seeks to educate students about that value, as well as the threats-global and local-to coral reefs.
Swot Analysis of "Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened" written by Andrea Larson, Tyler Teisberg includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Coral Reefs facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, Sustainability and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coral Reefs, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Coral Reefs 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Coral Reefs
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Coral Reefs
Strengths Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Coral Reefs in Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Coral Reefs 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Coral Reefs 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 Andrea Larson, Tyler Teisberg 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Coral Reefs has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Coral Reefs 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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Coral Reefs 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 Coral Reefs in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Coral Reefs 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Coral Reefs in the sector have low bargaining power. Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Coral Reefs to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Coral Reefs has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Coral Reefs to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Coral Reefs is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Coral Reefs has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Coral Reefs is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Coral Reefs is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Andrea Larson, Tyler Teisberg suggests that, Coral Reefs 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened HBR case study mentions - Coral Reefs 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Coral Reefs products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Coral Reefs needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened, it seems that the employees of Coral Reefs 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Coral Reefs is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Coral Reefs 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 - Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Coral Reefs 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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 Coral Reefs 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Coral Reefs, firm in the HBR case study Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened, is just above the industry average. Coral Reefs 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Coral Reefs 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.
Opportunities Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened | 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Coral Reefs 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. Coral Reefs 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Coral Reefs can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Coral Reefs 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Coral Reefs 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Coral Reefs to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Coral Reefs 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Coral Reefs 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Coral Reefs can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Coral Reefs 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, Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Coral Reefs in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Coral Reefs can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Coral Reefs operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Coral Reefs 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 Coral Reefs to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Coral Reefs is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Coral Reefs can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Threats Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened are -
Environmental challenges
– Coral Reefs 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. Coral Reefs can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Coral Reefs 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Coral Reefs 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened, Coral Reefs may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Coral Reefs in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Coral Reefs is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Coral Reefs in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Coral Reefs.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Coral Reefs has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Coral Reefs needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Coral Reefs can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Coral Reefs 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.
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. Coral Reefs needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Coral Reefs 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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 Coral Reef Ecosystems: Valuable and Critically Threatened 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 Coral Reefs needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.