Describes an architecture firm founded and run by a husband and wife team, Sharukh and Renu Mistry, that emphasizes "green" building. The firm presents an unusual mix of projects - spanning the spectrum from larger corporate projects to small private homes. The mix also includes more profitable work and projects deliberately selected for social good, including the design of orphanage communities for SOS Childrens International and other non-profit organizations. The mix engages teams of young architects in different kinds of learning opportunities, and allows them to manage these projects with an unusually high level of independence. The firm's founders are dedicated to being both very client-oriented and environmentally responsible. This can lead to some difficult choices and the case illustrates one example. The firm has been commissioned by SOS to design homes for some villages destroyed in the December 24, 2004 tsunami. The preferred design is thatch roofs which is in keeping with the local environment. However, the villagers want a more functional (and more expensive) reinforced cement concrete roof. Sharukh must decide which of his principles is to dominate in this situation. A (B) case presents and explains the decision. A (C) case discusses future plans for the firm.
Authors :: Amy C. Edmondson, Robert G. Eccles, Mona Sinha
Topics :: Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Tags :: International business, Leading teams, Negotiations, Organizational structure, Social enterprise, Sustainability, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "Mistry Architects (A)" written by Amy C. Edmondson, Robert G. Eccles, Mona Sinha includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sos Sharukh facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mistry Architects (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Leading teams, Negotiations, Organizational structure, Social enterprise, Sustainability and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mistry Architects (A) casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mistry Architects (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mistry Architects (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sos Sharukh, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sos Sharukh 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 Mistry Architects (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mistry Architects (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sos Sharukh
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 Sos Sharukh
Strengths Mistry Architects (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sos Sharukh in Mistry Architects (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Mistry Architects (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.
Strong track record of project management
– Sos Sharukh is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Sos Sharukh
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sos Sharukh does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Mistry Architects (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sos Sharukh to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sos Sharukh to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sos Sharukh in the sector have low bargaining power. Mistry Architects (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sos Sharukh to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sos Sharukh is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Mistry Architects (A) case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
High brand equity
– Sos Sharukh has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sos Sharukh to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sos Sharukh has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sos Sharukh 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sos Sharukh 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 Mistry Architects (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.
Learning organization
- Sos Sharukh 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 Sos Sharukh is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Mistry Architects (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sos Sharukh 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 Mistry Architects (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sos Sharukh 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 Mistry Architects (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mistry Architects (A) are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sos Sharukh 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. Sos Sharukh 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sos Sharukh 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sos Sharukh, firm in the HBR case study Mistry Architects (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Sos Sharukh 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sos Sharukh 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sos Sharukh products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sos Sharukh needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Mistry Architects (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 Mistry Architects (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sos Sharukh is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Mistry Architects (A), it seems that the employees of Sos Sharukh 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 Mistry Architects (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 Sos Sharukh has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sos Sharukh is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Mistry Architects (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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Mistry Architects (A), in the dynamic environment Sos Sharukh has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sos Sharukh has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Mistry Architects (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 Mistry Architects (A) are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sos Sharukh 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.
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. Sos Sharukh can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Sos Sharukh 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. Sos Sharukh 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sos Sharukh 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.
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 Sos Sharukh 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sos Sharukh 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, Mistry Architects (A), 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 Sos Sharukh 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sos Sharukh can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Mistry Architects (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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sos Sharukh 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Sos Sharukh can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sos Sharukh 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 Mistry Architects (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sos Sharukh to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sos Sharukh can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sos Sharukh can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sos Sharukh operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Threats Mistry Architects (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mistry Architects (A) are -
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. Sos Sharukh needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sos Sharukh has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sos Sharukh 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sos Sharukh demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Sos Sharukh 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. Sos Sharukh can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sos Sharukh with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sos Sharukh 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.
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. Sos Sharukh 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.
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 Sos Sharukh business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sos Sharukh is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sos Sharukh 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.
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 Mistry Architects (A), Sos Sharukh 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 .
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mistry Architects (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 Mistry Architects (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 Mistry Architects (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 Mistry Architects (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 Mistry Architects (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 Sos Sharukh needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.