This case concerns Gene Cattie Enterprises (GCE), a manufacturer of a variety of fabricated metal house accessories, including mailboxes and window boxes. Founded in 2001 by Gene Cattie, a former HR professional for a large diversified financial-services company, GCE manufactures window boxes in five basic colors in a small plant in central Virginia. Historically, GCE has competed by providing a low-cost, high-quality product, sold mostly to specialty stores and catalog retailers. Competitive pressures have recently made delivery lead time an issue. Cattie believes that if he can significantly reduce the manufacturing lead time, he will be able to respond to market fluctuations as well as provide a line of custom-made window boxes. He wonders whether he can improve the effectiveness of his window-box production operation. As a former HR professional, he is unsure what his choices are. He is even unsure of the measures he should use to evaluate his decisions. He is, however, sure of one thing: his goal is to make money. His gut tells him that he is not making as much as he could.
Swot Analysis of "Gene Cattie Enterprises" written by Elliott N. Weiss includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cattie Gce facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Gene Cattie Enterprises case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Operations management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Gene Cattie Enterprises casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gene Cattie Enterprises
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Gene Cattie Enterprises case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cattie Gce, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cattie Gce 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Gene Cattie Enterprises case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cattie Gce
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 Cattie Gce
Strengths Gene Cattie Enterprises | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cattie Gce in Gene Cattie Enterprises Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cattie Gce is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Gene Cattie Enterprises are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cattie Gce 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cattie Gce digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cattie Gce 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cattie Gce in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Cattie Gce has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Gene Cattie Enterprises 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cattie Gce 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cattie Gce
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cattie Gce does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cattie Gce 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
- Cattie Gce 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 Cattie Gce is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Gene Cattie Enterprises Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Cattie Gce is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Gene Cattie Enterprises Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cattie Gce 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Cattie Gce 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 Elliott N. Weiss 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.
Weaknesses Gene Cattie Enterprises | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gene Cattie Enterprises are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cattie Gce 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 - Gene Cattie Enterprises should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cattie Gce 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cattie Gce is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Cattie Gce needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cattie Gce to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Gene Cattie Enterprises, is just above the industry average. Cattie Gce 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Cattie Gce has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cattie Gce 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gene Cattie Enterprises HBR case study mentions - Cattie Gce takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cattie Gce 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Gene Cattie Enterprises, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cattie Gce 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Cattie Gce, firm in the HBR case study Gene Cattie Enterprises needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Gene Cattie Enterprises | 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cattie Gce 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 Cattie Gce to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cattie Gce 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cattie Gce can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cattie Gce 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cattie Gce 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cattie Gce to increase its market reach. Cattie Gce 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cattie Gce 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cattie Gce to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Cattie Gce 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.
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 Cattie Gce 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cattie Gce 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cattie Gce can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cattie Gce operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Cattie Gce can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cattie Gce is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Gene Cattie Enterprises 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Gene Cattie Enterprises are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cattie Gce 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.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Cattie Gce in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Cattie Gce 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.
Environmental challenges
– Cattie Gce 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. Cattie Gce can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 Cattie Gce business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cattie Gce 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 Cattie Gce with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Cattie Gce 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.
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. Cattie Gce needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cattie Gce 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cattie Gce has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cattie Gce 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cattie Gce is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cattie Gce 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gene Cattie Enterprises 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises 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 Gene Cattie Enterprises 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 Cattie Gce needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.