Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve
Celebrated as one of the world's premiere luxury hotel brands, Oberoi Hotels attracts and serves some of the most quality sensitive guests in the world. The case considers the challenge of how an organization, with a standardized service model, can repeatedly delight customers whose expectations grow with every interaction. To explore this question, the case details the design elements of Oberoi's complex service operation, including its approaches to employee management and continuous improvement, as well as the dynamics of service competition in a rapidly growing market. Teaching Note includes links to videos intended for display during classroom debrief.
Authors :: Ryan W. Buell, Ananth Raman, Vidhya Muthuram
Swot Analysis of "Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve" written by Ryan W. Buell, Ananth Raman, Vidhya Muthuram includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Oberoi Hotels facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Developing employees, Labor, Motivating people, Product development, Supply chain and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Oberoi Hotels, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Oberoi Hotels 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Oberoi Hotels
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 Oberoi Hotels
Strengths Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Oberoi Hotels in Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Oberoi Hotels 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.
Training and development
– Oberoi Hotels has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Oberoi Hotels is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Oberoi Hotels is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Oberoi Hotels 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Oberoi Hotels 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Oberoi Hotels 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Oberoi Hotels
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Oberoi Hotels does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Oberoi Hotels digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Oberoi Hotels has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High brand equity
– Oberoi Hotels has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Oberoi Hotels to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Oberoi Hotels in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve, is just above the industry average. Oberoi Hotels 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve, in the dynamic environment Oberoi Hotels has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Oberoi Hotels has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Oberoi Hotels 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Oberoi Hotels is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Oberoi Hotels needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Oberoi Hotels to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve, 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 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 Oberoi Hotels supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Oberoi Hotels vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Oberoi Hotels 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ryan W. Buell, Ananth Raman, Vidhya Muthuram suggests that, Oberoi Hotels 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Oberoi Hotels 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Oberoi Hotels 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Oberoi Hotels 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. Oberoi Hotels 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.
Opportunities Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve | 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Oberoi Hotels 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Oberoi Hotels 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, Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Oberoi Hotels can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Oberoi Hotels 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 Oberoi Hotels to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Oberoi Hotels can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Oberoi Hotels can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Oberoi Hotels 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Oberoi Hotels 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Oberoi Hotels 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Oberoi Hotels to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Oberoi Hotels can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Oberoi Hotels operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Oberoi Hotels can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Oberoi Hotels 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Oberoi Hotels 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.
Threats Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve are -
Regulatory challenges
– Oberoi Hotels 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Oberoi Hotels in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Oberoi Hotels has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Oberoi Hotels 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve, Oberoi Hotels may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Oberoi Hotels with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Oberoi Hotels 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Oberoi Hotels is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Oberoi Hotels 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 Oberoi Hotels 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 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. Oberoi Hotels needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Oberoi Hotels 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve .
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.
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 Oberoi Hotels.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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 Oberoi Hotels: Train Whistle in the Tiger Reserve 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 Oberoi Hotels needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.