Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options
An Amazon stockholder wants to decide the long/short positions for several put options that would result in the lowest risk at the best possible return on her stocks. In particular, she is looking to generate as much return as the status quo strategy where no put options are used.
Swot Analysis of "Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options" written by Hubert Pun, Siddharth Aiyar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Options Reka facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial markets and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Options Reka, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Options Reka 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Options Reka
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Options Reka
Strengths Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Options Reka in Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Options Reka 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Options Reka has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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
– Options Reka has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Options Reka 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Options Reka in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Options Reka is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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.
Analytics focus
– Options Reka 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 Hubert Pun, Siddharth Aiyar 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.
Organizational Resilience of Options Reka
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Options Reka does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Options Reka 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Options Reka in the sector have low bargaining power. Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Options Reka to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Options Reka 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.
Learning organization
- Options Reka 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 Options Reka is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Options Reka 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 Options Reka in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options are -
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 Options Reka supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Options Reka vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Options Reka 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Options Reka 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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 Options Reka has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Options Reka 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. Options Reka 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Options Reka 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 - Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Options Reka 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Options Reka 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Options Reka is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Options Reka products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Options Reka needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options | 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Options Reka is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Options Reka 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Options Reka can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Options Reka in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Options Reka 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Options Reka 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, Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Options Reka has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Options Reka to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options case study. Options Reka can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Options Reka can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Options Reka in the consumer business. Now Options Reka can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Options Reka 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Options Reka 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. Options Reka 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Options Reka 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.
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 Options Reka 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.
Threats Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options are -
Increasing wage structure of Options Reka
– 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 Options Reka.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Options Reka 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Options Reka 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
– Options Reka 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Options Reka with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Options Reka needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Options Reka 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 Leadership & Managing People 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 Options Reka business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Options Reka has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Options Reka needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Options Reka 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, Options Reka 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options .
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 Options Reka.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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 Julia Reka: Analyzing Put Options 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 Options Reka needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.