La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year
This set of two cases describes how two MBA alumni acquired a long-established business in France, and, despite all their efforts to modernise it, grow it and apply best practices as learned in business school (Case A), finally turned it into a loss-making and cash-bleeding company (Case B).
Swot Analysis of "La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year" written by Monica Perez Cuevas, Patrick Turner, Timothy Bovard, Anne-Marie Carrick includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Corpo Modernise facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Negotiations and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Corpo Modernise, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Corpo Modernise 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Corpo Modernise
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 Corpo Modernise
Strengths La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Corpo Modernise in La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Corpo Modernise has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Corpo Modernise to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Corpo Modernise has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Corpo Modernise 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Corpo Modernise 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Corpo Modernise 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 Corpo Modernise is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Corpo Modernise is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Corpo Modernise in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Corpo Modernise 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Corpo Modernise in the sector have low bargaining power. La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Corpo Modernise to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Corpo Modernise
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Corpo Modernise does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Corpo Modernise 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Corpo Modernise is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Weaknesses La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Corpo Modernise has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Corpo Modernise 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Corpo Modernise 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Corpo Modernise products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Corpo Modernise needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Corpo Modernise supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Corpo Modernise vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year, it seems that the employees of Corpo Modernise 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year, 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year, is just above the industry average. Corpo Modernise 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Corpo Modernise is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Corpo Modernise needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Corpo Modernise to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year, in the dynamic environment Corpo Modernise has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Corpo Modernise 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
– Corpo Modernise 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.
Opportunities La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year | 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Corpo Modernise 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, La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Corpo Modernise is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Corpo Modernise 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Corpo Modernise to increase its market reach. Corpo Modernise 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Corpo Modernise can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Corpo Modernise operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Corpo Modernise can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Corpo Modernise 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Corpo Modernise can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year 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
– Corpo Modernise 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Corpo Modernise 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Corpo Modernise to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Corpo Modernise 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.
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. Corpo Modernise 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. Corpo Modernise 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. Corpo Modernise 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.
Threats La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Corpo Modernise is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Corpo Modernise business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Corpo Modernise will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Regulatory challenges
– Corpo Modernise 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.
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. Corpo Modernise can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Corpo Modernise 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Corpo Modernise 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.
Environmental challenges
– Corpo Modernise 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. Corpo Modernise can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Corpo Modernise with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Corpo Modernise has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Corpo Modernise 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Corpo Modernise 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.
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. Corpo Modernise needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year 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 La Corpo, Act II: The Second Year 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 Corpo Modernise needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
