GK: Building Businesses in India SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of GK: Building Businesses in India
The case provides the opportunity to discuss some of the decisions faced by Gopala Krishnan (GK), an Indian entrepreneur who has developed a number of successful technology-related start-ups. The case presents three ventures that GK worked on in parallel: TimePass India, a cinema and real estate business; Immunizeindia, a social venture; and Banyan Mobile, a music streaming business. GK is faced with three strategic decisions, one for each venture. All three ventures are part of GK's business incubator: Hanin Global.
Swot Analysis of "GK: Building Businesses in India" written by Christoph Zott includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Gk Gk's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in GK: Building Businesses in India case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Joint ventures and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the GK: Building Businesses in India casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of GK: Building Businesses in India
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in GK: Building Businesses in India case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gk Gk's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gk Gk'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 GK: Building Businesses in India can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in GK: Building Businesses in India case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gk Gk'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 Gk Gk's
Strengths GK: Building Businesses in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gk Gk's in GK: Building Businesses in India Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gk Gk's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gk Gk'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.
Organizational Resilience of Gk Gk's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Gk Gk's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gk Gk's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Gk Gk'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 Gk Gk's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in GK: Building Businesses in India Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the GK: Building Businesses in India 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.
High brand equity
– Gk Gk's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gk Gk's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gk Gk's in the sector have low bargaining power. GK: Building Businesses in India has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gk Gk's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gk Gk's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gk Gk'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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Gk Gk's 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 Gk Gk's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Gk Gk's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in GK: Building Businesses in India Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gk Gk'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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gk Gk's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in GK: Building Businesses in India 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 GK: Building Businesses in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GK: Building Businesses in India are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study GK: Building Businesses in India, in the dynamic environment Gk Gk's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gk Gk's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the GK: Building Businesses in India 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 Gk Gk's has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Gk Gk'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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gk Gk's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Gk Gk's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gk Gk's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gk Gk's 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, Gk Gk'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. Gk Gk'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.
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 Gk Gk's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - GK: Building Businesses in India, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gk Gk's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gk Gk's 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study GK: Building Businesses in India, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study GK: Building Businesses in India 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 GK: Building Businesses in India can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gk Gk's is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Christoph Zott suggests that, Gk Gk'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.
Opportunities GK: Building Businesses in India | 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 GK: Building Businesses in India are -
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. Gk Gk's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gk Gk'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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Gk Gk's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gk Gk's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gk Gk's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. GK: Building Businesses in India 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gk Gk'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 Gk Gk's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Gk Gk'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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Gk Gk's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gk Gk's 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gk Gk's 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Gk Gk'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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gk Gk's to increase its market reach. Gk Gk's will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gk Gk'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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gk Gk'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, GK: Building Businesses in India, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats GK: Building Businesses in India External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study GK: Building Businesses in India 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 Gk Gk's.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gk Gk'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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gk Gk'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 GK: Building Businesses in India .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gk Gk'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 Gk Gk's 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gk Gk'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 wage structure of Gk Gk'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 Gk Gk's.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study GK: Building Businesses in India, Gk Gk's 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 Gk Gk's in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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. Gk Gk's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Gk Gk's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GK: Building Businesses in India 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 GK: Building Businesses in India 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 GK: Building Businesses in India 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 GK: Building Businesses in India 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 GK: Building Businesses in India 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 Gk Gk's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
