Case Study Description of Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options
Universal Print Systems Limited, located in Southern India, provides self-adhesive label printing for such end-user businesses as the passenger car and alcoholic beverages industries. Although larger markets exist in Western and Northern India, 80 per cent of its customers are located in Southern India. Because of the company's low capacity utilization, management is contemplating its operations strategy options, including aggressively pursuing business in Southern India, expanding to Northern and/or Western India, sourcing online orders and digital printing, or exporting. Management is unsure of the best option to pursue. Sivakumar Alur is affiliated with T.A. Pai Management Institute.
Swot Analysis of "Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options" written by Sivakumar Alur includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Southern India facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Southern India, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Southern India 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Southern India
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 Southern India
Strengths Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Southern India in Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Southern India in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Southern India is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Southern India 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Southern India 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Southern India 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 Sivakumar Alur 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.
Training and development
– Southern India has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Southern India 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 Southern India 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Southern India to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Southern India to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Southern India in the sector have low bargaining power. Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Southern India to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Southern India
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Southern India does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Southern India is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Southern India supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Southern India vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Southern India has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Southern India 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Southern India is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Southern India products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Southern India needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options, is just above the industry average. Southern India 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Southern India, firm in the HBR case study Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Southern India 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Southern India 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 - Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sivakumar Alur suggests that, Southern India 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options | 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Southern India 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Southern India 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Southern India 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 Southern India to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Southern India 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. Southern India 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Southern India 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, Southern India can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Southern India operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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. Southern India 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
– Southern India can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Southern India 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Southern India 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Southern India 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.
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 Southern India to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Southern India 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, Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options, 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Southern India.
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 Southern India in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Southern India
– 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 Southern India.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Southern India can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Southern India business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Southern India 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Southern India with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Southern India 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Southern India is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Southern India 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Southern India in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Universal Print Systems Limited: Exploring Operations Strategy Options 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 Southern India needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
