Swot Analysis of "Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit" written by Benoit Leleux, Bruno Tindemans includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Fortis Venturing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fortis Venturing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fortis Venturing 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fortis Venturing
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 Fortis Venturing
Strengths Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fortis Venturing in Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fortis Venturing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fortis Venturing 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fortis Venturing 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Fortis Venturing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fortis Venturing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fortis Venturing 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.
Analytics focus
– Fortis Venturing 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, Bruno Tindemans 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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Fortis Venturing 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 Fortis Venturing in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fortis Venturing is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fortis Venturing in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Fortis Venturing has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Fortis Venturing to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fortis Venturing 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Fortis Venturing has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fortis Venturing is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Fortis Venturing, firm in the HBR case study Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fortis Venturing 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 - Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit, is just above the industry average. Fortis Venturing 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit, 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fortis Venturing is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fortis Venturing 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. Fortis Venturing 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Fortis Venturing 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit HBR case study mentions - Fortis Venturing 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fortis Venturing 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Fortis Venturing products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fortis Venturing needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit | 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit are -
Buying journey improvements
– Fortis Venturing can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing 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 Fortis Venturing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fortis Venturing 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fortis Venturing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fortis Venturing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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. Fortis Venturing 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. Fortis Venturing 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fortis Venturing 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Fortis Venturing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fortis Venturing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Fortis Venturing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fortis Venturing to increase its market reach. Fortis Venturing 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fortis Venturing 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, Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Fortis Venturing 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Fortis Venturing 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.
Threats Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit are -
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. Fortis Venturing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fortis Venturing 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 wage structure of Fortis Venturing
– 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 Fortis Venturing.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fortis Venturing is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Fortis Venturing in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fortis Venturing 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit, Fortis Venturing 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fortis Venturing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fortis Venturing 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fortis Venturing 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.
Environmental challenges
– Fortis Venturing 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. Fortis Venturing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fortis Venturing 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fortis Venturing 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.
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 Fortis Venturing business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing (A): Building the Fighting Spirit 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 Fortis Venturing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.