Two entrepreneurs are discussing how to scale-up their new company. They face a variety of issues, ranging from hiring and training to strategy and focus.
Authors :: Myra M. Hart, Marco Iansiti, Andrea Chermayeff, Diana Gardner
Swot Analysis of "CitySoft, Inc." written by Myra M. Hart, Marco Iansiti, Andrea Chermayeff, Diana Gardner includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Citysoft Ranging facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in CitySoft, Inc. case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, Internet and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the CitySoft, Inc. casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in CitySoft, Inc. case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Citysoft Ranging, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Citysoft Ranging 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 CitySoft, Inc. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in CitySoft, Inc. case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Citysoft Ranging
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 Citysoft Ranging
Strengths CitySoft, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Citysoft Ranging in CitySoft, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Citysoft Ranging
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Citysoft Ranging does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Citysoft Ranging has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Citysoft Ranging to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Citysoft Ranging digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Citysoft Ranging 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.
Learning organization
- Citysoft Ranging 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 Citysoft Ranging is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in CitySoft, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Citysoft Ranging in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Citysoft Ranging 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 Citysoft Ranging in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Citysoft Ranging has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in CitySoft, Inc. 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Citysoft Ranging 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 CitySoft, Inc. HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Citysoft Ranging is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Citysoft Ranging 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 CitySoft, Inc. - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Citysoft Ranging is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the CitySoft, Inc. are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Citysoft Ranging is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in CitySoft, Inc. 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.
Weaknesses CitySoft, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CitySoft, Inc. are -
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 Citysoft Ranging supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - CitySoft, Inc., it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Citysoft Ranging vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Myra M. Hart, Marco Iansiti, Andrea Chermayeff, Diana Gardner suggests that, Citysoft Ranging 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Citysoft Ranging 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Citysoft Ranging 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. Citysoft Ranging 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study CitySoft, Inc., in the dynamic environment Citysoft Ranging has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Citysoft Ranging has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Citysoft Ranging 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 - CitySoft, Inc. should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study CitySoft, Inc., it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Citysoft Ranging 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study CitySoft, Inc., is just above the industry average. Citysoft Ranging 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study CitySoft, Inc. 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 Citysoft Ranging 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Citysoft Ranging is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Citysoft Ranging needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Citysoft Ranging to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities CitySoft, Inc. | 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 CitySoft, Inc. are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Citysoft Ranging 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, Citysoft Ranging can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Citysoft Ranging operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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. Citysoft Ranging can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Citysoft Ranging in the consumer business. Now Citysoft Ranging can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Citysoft Ranging 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Citysoft Ranging 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 Citysoft Ranging to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Citysoft Ranging can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Citysoft Ranging 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Citysoft Ranging 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Citysoft Ranging 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Citysoft Ranging 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Citysoft Ranging 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, CitySoft, Inc., to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Citysoft Ranging 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.
Threats CitySoft, Inc. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study CitySoft, Inc. are -
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. Citysoft Ranging 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Citysoft Ranging is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Citysoft Ranging demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Citysoft Ranging has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Citysoft Ranging 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Citysoft Ranging 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Citysoft Ranging 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Citysoft Ranging with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 CitySoft, Inc., Citysoft Ranging 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 .
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 Citysoft Ranging in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Citysoft Ranging
– 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 Citysoft Ranging.
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. Citysoft Ranging needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CitySoft, Inc. 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 CitySoft, Inc. 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 CitySoft, Inc. 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 CitySoft, Inc. 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 CitySoft, Inc. 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 Citysoft Ranging needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
