Case Study Description of AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption
Follows the growth of an entrepreneur from his early startup activities. As the company evolves from 1998 to 2005, looks at key decisions and turning points as AtHoc's strategy adapts in response to changing market environments, business opportunities, and customer needs. At the close, the company has successfully navigated several rounds of VC financing and is weighing harvest strategies and next steps.
Swot Analysis of "AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption" written by Lynda M. Applegate, Brian J. Delacey includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Athoc Athoc's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, IPO, Joint ventures, Mergers & acquisitions, Venture capital and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Athoc Athoc's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Athoc Athoc's 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Athoc Athoc's
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 Athoc Athoc's
Strengths AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Athoc Athoc's in AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Athoc Athoc's 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.
Organizational Resilience of Athoc Athoc's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Athoc Athoc's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Athoc Athoc's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Athoc Athoc's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Athoc Athoc's 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 Lynda M. Applegate, Brian J. Delacey 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
– Athoc Athoc's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Athoc Athoc's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Athoc Athoc's 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Athoc Athoc's 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.
Learning organization
- Athoc Athoc's 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 Athoc Athoc's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Athoc Athoc's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Athoc Athoc's 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Athoc Athoc's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Athoc Athoc's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Athoc Athoc's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Athoc Athoc's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption, in the dynamic environment Athoc Athoc's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Athoc Athoc's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Athoc Athoc's 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Athoc Athoc's has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Athoc Athoc's 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. Athoc Athoc's 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption HBR case study mentions - Athoc Athoc's 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption, 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Athoc Athoc's, firm in the HBR case study AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Athoc Athoc's has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Lynda M. Applegate, Brian J. Delacey suggests that, Athoc Athoc's 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 Athoc Athoc's 's lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Athoc Athoc's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption | 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Athoc Athoc's 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 Athoc Athoc's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Athoc Athoc's 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Athoc Athoc's 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, Athoc Athoc's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Athoc Athoc's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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 Athoc Athoc's in the consumer business. Now Athoc Athoc's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Athoc Athoc's 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. Athoc Athoc's 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Athoc Athoc's 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Athoc Athoc's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Athoc Athoc's 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, AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Athoc Athoc's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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.
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 Athoc Athoc's 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Athoc Athoc's 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Athoc Athoc's 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Athoc Athoc's 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.
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. Athoc Athoc's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Athoc Athoc's 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Athoc Athoc's 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption .
Regulatory challenges
– Athoc Athoc's 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.
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. Athoc Athoc's 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Athoc Athoc's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Athoc Athoc's 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Athoc Athoc's is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Athoc Athoc's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Athoc Athoc's 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. Athoc Athoc's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Increasing wage structure of Athoc Athoc's
– 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 Athoc Athoc's.
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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 AtHoc: Dealing with Disruption 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 Athoc Athoc's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.