Swot Analysis of "Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?" written by Thomas R. Eisenmann, Shikhar Ghosh, Christopher Payton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Triangulate Pivot facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Triangulate Pivot, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Triangulate Pivot 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Triangulate Pivot
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 Triangulate Pivot
Strengths Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Triangulate Pivot in Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Triangulate Pivot is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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.
Training and development
– Triangulate Pivot has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Triangulate Pivot has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Triangulate Pivot 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Triangulate Pivot in the sector have low bargaining power. Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Triangulate Pivot to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Triangulate Pivot is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Triangulate Pivot has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Triangulate Pivot to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Triangulate Pivot
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Triangulate Pivot does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Triangulate Pivot is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Triangulate Pivot 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.
Learning organization
- Triangulate Pivot 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 Triangulate Pivot is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Triangulate Pivot 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Triangulate Pivot in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?, 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?, in the dynamic environment Triangulate Pivot has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Triangulate Pivot has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Triangulate Pivot 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Triangulate Pivot 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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 Triangulate Pivot has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Triangulate Pivot 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?, is just above the industry average. Triangulate Pivot 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Triangulate Pivot 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Triangulate Pivot is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Triangulate Pivot needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Triangulate Pivot to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Triangulate Pivot 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 - Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Triangulate Pivot is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? | 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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. Triangulate Pivot can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Triangulate Pivot can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Triangulate Pivot has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Triangulate Pivot to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Triangulate Pivot 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Triangulate Pivot has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Triangulate Pivot to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? case study. Triangulate Pivot can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Triangulate Pivot can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Triangulate Pivot operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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 Triangulate Pivot 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. Triangulate Pivot can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Triangulate Pivot 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. Triangulate Pivot 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Triangulate Pivot 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Triangulate Pivot 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Triangulate Pivot 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
– Triangulate Pivot 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.
Threats Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Triangulate Pivot 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Triangulate Pivot 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.
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 Triangulate Pivot in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Triangulate Pivot 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. Triangulate Pivot can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Triangulate Pivot 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Triangulate Pivot 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.
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. Triangulate Pivot can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Triangulate Pivot needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
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 Triangulate Pivot business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Triangulate Pivot is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Triangulate Pivot has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Triangulate Pivot 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 Triangulate Pivot with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Triangulate Pivot
– 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 Triangulate Pivot.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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 Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit? 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 Triangulate Pivot needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.