Swot Analysis of "Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B)" written by Benoit Leleux, Katrin Siebenburger includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Justin Wilson facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, IPO and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Justin Wilson, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Justin Wilson 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Justin Wilson
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Justin Wilson
Strengths Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Justin Wilson in Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Justin Wilson in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Justin Wilson has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Justin Wilson 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Justin Wilson has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Justin Wilson 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.
Organizational Resilience of Justin Wilson
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Justin Wilson does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Justin Wilson 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Justin Wilson digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Justin Wilson 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Justin Wilson 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Justin Wilson is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Justin Wilson 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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.
Analytics focus
– Justin Wilson 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 Benoit Leleux, Katrin Siebenburger 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.
Weaknesses Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B), it seems that the employees of Justin Wilson 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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 Justin Wilson 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benoit Leleux, Katrin Siebenburger suggests that, Justin Wilson 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Justin Wilson products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Justin Wilson needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Justin Wilson is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Justin Wilson 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. Justin Wilson 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Justin Wilson, firm in the HBR case study Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Justin Wilson 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B), in the dynamic environment Justin Wilson has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Justin Wilson 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, Justin Wilson 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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.
Opportunities Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) | 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Justin Wilson 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Justin Wilson 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.
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 Justin Wilson in the consumer business. Now Justin Wilson can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Justin Wilson can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Justin Wilson can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Justin Wilson 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 Justin Wilson to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Justin Wilson 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Justin Wilson can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Justin Wilson operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Justin Wilson 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Justin Wilson 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Justin Wilson 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Justin Wilson to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Justin Wilson in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Justin Wilson 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.
Threats Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) are -
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 Justin Wilson.
Environmental challenges
– Justin Wilson 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. Justin Wilson can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Justin Wilson can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Justin Wilson needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Justin Wilson 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Justin Wilson 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
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.
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 Justin Wilson in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Justin Wilson 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Justin Wilson 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Justin Wilson with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Justin Wilson
– 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 Justin Wilson.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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 Justin Wilson plc: Financing a Formula One Rising Star (B) 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 Justin Wilson needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.