OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform
Gives an account of how an entrepreneur was able to seize an opportunity to start a new business and to manage a low-cost, but effective sales operation. Khalid Gibran exhibited the hallmarks of entrepreneurial style--he viewed rules as guidelines only and was willing to adjust his organization's priorities to make the most of changing circumstances. In less than three years, he spearheaded two organizations, but in so doing, he had to make a number of important trade-offs. OneCard--his latest and most ambitious venture--was launched just before Hong Kong was beset by the mysterious SARS virus. As retail sales plummeted and Hong Kong residents avoided eating out, many businesses were bracing for more uncertainty. Gibran, however, saw a marketing opportunity amid the many challenges and a chance to grow his merchant and subscriber bases.
Swot Analysis of "OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform" written by Thomas M. Hout, Amir Hoosain includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Gibran Onecard facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customers, Entrepreneurship, Knowledge management and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gibran Onecard, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gibran Onecard 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gibran Onecard
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 Gibran Onecard
Strengths OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gibran Onecard in OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gibran Onecard 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gibran Onecard is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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.
Organizational Resilience of Gibran Onecard
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Gibran Onecard does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Gibran Onecard 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 Gibran Onecard in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Gibran Onecard has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gibran Onecard to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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.
Analytics focus
– Gibran Onecard 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 Thomas M. Hout, Amir Hoosain 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 recruit top talent
– Gibran Onecard is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gibran Onecard to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gibran Onecard to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Gibran Onecard 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 Gibran Onecard 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gibran Onecard in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Gibran Onecard 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform, is just above the industry average. Gibran Onecard 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gibran Onecard 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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 Gibran Onecard 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gibran Onecard 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Gibran Onecard, firm in the HBR case study OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gibran Onecard is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Gibran Onecard 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gibran Onecard 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 - OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Gibran Onecard is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Thomas M. Hout, Amir Hoosain suggests that, Gibran Onecard is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Opportunities OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform | 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform are -
Buying journey improvements
– Gibran Onecard can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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.
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 Gibran Onecard 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Gibran Onecard 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gibran Onecard 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gibran Onecard 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. Gibran Onecard can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gibran Onecard 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gibran Onecard to increase its market reach. Gibran Onecard 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gibran Onecard 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gibran Onecard 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gibran Onecard 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 Gibran Onecard to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gibran Onecard 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gibran Onecard to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gibran Onecard is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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.
Threats OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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. Gibran Onecard can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gibran Onecard 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gibran Onecard is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gibran Onecard 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 Gibran Onecard business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gibran Onecard has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gibran Onecard 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 Gibran Onecard 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.
Increasing wage structure of Gibran Onecard
– 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 Gibran Onecard.
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. Gibran Onecard needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Gibran Onecard 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. Gibran Onecard can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Gibran Onecard 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gibran Onecard 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.
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 Gibran Onecard.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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 OneCard: Building a Savings and Benefits Platform 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 Gibran Onecard needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.