The Atavist: Reinventing the Book SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Atavist: Reinventing the Book
Atavist, a start-up founded by journalists, publishes enhanced ebook singles as well as the software to create enhanced ebooks. The company is currently engaged in both publishing and software development, but as they raise funding and grow, must decide whether to focus on one or the other.
Swot Analysis of "The Atavist: Reinventing the Book" written by Mukti Khaire, Mary Tripsas includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Atavist Enhanced facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Atavist: Reinventing the Book case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Disruptive innovation, Entrepreneurship, Growth strategy, Technology and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Atavist: Reinventing the Book casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Atavist: Reinventing the Book
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Atavist: Reinventing the Book case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Atavist Enhanced, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Atavist Enhanced 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Atavist: Reinventing the Book case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Atavist Enhanced
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 Atavist Enhanced
Strengths The Atavist: Reinventing the Book | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Atavist Enhanced in The Atavist: Reinventing the Book Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Atavist Enhanced in the sector have low bargaining power. The Atavist: Reinventing the Book has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Atavist Enhanced to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Atavist Enhanced has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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.
Analytics focus
– Atavist Enhanced 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 Mukti Khaire, Mary Tripsas 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
– Atavist Enhanced 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 Atavist Enhanced in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Atavist Enhanced 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Atavist Enhanced
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Atavist Enhanced 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 Atavist Enhanced in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Atavist Enhanced has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Atavist Enhanced 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Atavist Enhanced is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Atavist Enhanced is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Atavist: Reinventing the Book are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Atavist Enhanced 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.
High brand equity
– Atavist Enhanced has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Atavist Enhanced to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses The Atavist: Reinventing the Book | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Atavist: Reinventing the Book are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Atavist Enhanced 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Atavist Enhanced has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High 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 Atavist Enhanced supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Atavist: Reinventing the Book, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Atavist Enhanced vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Atavist Enhanced, firm in the HBR case study The Atavist: Reinventing the Book needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Atavist: Reinventing the Book, it seems that the employees of Atavist Enhanced 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Atavist Enhanced is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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 Atavist Enhanced has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Atavist Enhanced products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Atavist Enhanced needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Atavist Enhanced 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. Atavist Enhanced 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Atavist Enhanced has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Atavist: Reinventing the Book, 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.
Opportunities The Atavist: Reinventing the Book | 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Atavist Enhanced 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Atavist Enhanced 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Atavist Enhanced 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Atavist Enhanced 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 Atavist Enhanced to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Atavist Enhanced 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.
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. Atavist Enhanced can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Atavist Enhanced 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Atavist Enhanced can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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.
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. Atavist Enhanced 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. Atavist Enhanced 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Atavist Enhanced has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Atavist Enhanced to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Atavist: Reinventing the Book case study. Atavist Enhanced can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Atavist Enhanced 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Atavist Enhanced can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Atavist Enhanced can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats The Atavist: Reinventing the Book External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Atavist: Reinventing the Book are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Atavist: Reinventing the Book, Atavist Enhanced 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 .
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 Atavist Enhanced business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Atavist Enhanced can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Atavist Enhanced 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Atavist Enhanced 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.
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 Atavist Enhanced.
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. Atavist Enhanced can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Atavist Enhanced 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. Atavist Enhanced can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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. Atavist Enhanced needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Atavist Enhanced in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Atavist Enhanced has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Atavist Enhanced 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Atavist Enhanced with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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 The Atavist: Reinventing the Book 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 Atavist Enhanced needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.