King & Roberts (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Communication
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of King & Roberts (A)
This case follows the valuation and negotiation process Wally Camp underwent. The (A) case starts with a description of the business and Wally's assessment of the problems with its current management. Then the case describes the valuation of the company's assets and ends with a valuation decision.
Authors :: James R. Rubin, C. Ray Smith, Benjamin R. Jacobson
Swot Analysis of "King & Roberts (A)" written by James R. Rubin, C. Ray Smith, Benjamin R. Jacobson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Valuation Wally facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in King & Roberts (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Communication.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the King & Roberts (A) casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of King & Roberts (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in King & Roberts (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Valuation Wally, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Valuation Wally 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 King & Roberts (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in King & Roberts (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Valuation Wally
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Communication field.
4. Making a Communication topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Valuation Wally
Strengths King & Roberts (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Valuation Wally in King & Roberts (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Valuation Wally
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Valuation Wally does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Valuation Wally 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 Valuation Wally is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in King & Roberts (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Valuation Wally 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.
Digital Transformation in Communication segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Valuation Wally digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Valuation Wally 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Valuation Wally in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communication industry
– King & Roberts (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Valuation Wally to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communication industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Valuation Wally to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the King & Roberts (A) 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Valuation Wally is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the King & Roberts (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Valuation Wally 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 James R. Rubin, C. Ray Smith, Benjamin R. Jacobson 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Valuation Wally is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in King & Roberts (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Valuation Wally 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 King & Roberts (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Valuation Wally 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.
Weaknesses King & Roberts (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of King & Roberts (A) are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Valuation Wally is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study King & Roberts (A) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study King & Roberts (A), it seems that the employees of Valuation Wally 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study King & Roberts (A), is just above the industry average. Valuation Wally 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the King & Roberts (A) 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 Valuation Wally has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Valuation Wally supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - King & Roberts (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Valuation Wally vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study King & Roberts (A) 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 Valuation Wally 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Valuation Wally is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communication segment. Valuation Wally needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Valuation Wally to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Valuation Wally products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Valuation Wally needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Valuation Wally 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study King & Roberts (A) 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 King & Roberts (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Valuation Wally is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Valuation Wally, firm in the HBR case study King & Roberts (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities King & Roberts (A) | 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 King & Roberts (A) are -
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 Valuation Wally in the consumer business. Now Valuation Wally can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Valuation Wally 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 Valuation Wally can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Valuation Wally 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 King & Roberts (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Valuation Wally to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Valuation Wally to increase its market reach. Valuation Wally 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Valuation Wally can develop new processes and procedures in Communication 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Valuation Wally is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. King & Roberts (A) 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Valuation Wally can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. King & Roberts (A) 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Valuation Wally in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communication segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Valuation Wally 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 Communication industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Valuation Wally 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. Valuation Wally 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Valuation Wally 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communication industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Valuation Wally can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats King & Roberts (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study King & Roberts (A) are -
Increasing wage structure of Valuation Wally
– 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 Valuation Wally.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Valuation Wally in the Communication industry. The Communication 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.
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. Valuation Wally 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.
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. Valuation Wally needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communication industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Valuation Wally 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. Valuation Wally can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communication industry.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Valuation Wally with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study King & Roberts (A), Valuation Wally may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communication .
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 Valuation Wally.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Valuation Wally is facing in Communication sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Valuation Wally has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communication industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Valuation Wally needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communication 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Valuation Wally 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 King & Roberts (A) .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Valuation Wally 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of King & Roberts (A) 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 King & Roberts (A) 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 King & Roberts (A) 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 King & Roberts (A) 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 King & Roberts (A) 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 Valuation Wally needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
