Swot Analysis of "Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months" written by Michael Y. Yoshino, Carin-Isabel Knoop includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Fritz Hans facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Mergers & acquisitions and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fritz Hans, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fritz Hans 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fritz Hans
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 Fritz Hans
Strengths Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fritz Hans in Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fritz Hans is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fritz Hans 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fritz Hans 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 Fritz Hans in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fritz Hans is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fritz Hans to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fritz Hans to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fritz Hans has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fritz Hans 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fritz Hans digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fritz Hans 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.
Learning organization
- Fritz Hans 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 Fritz Hans is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fritz Hans 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Fritz Hans 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 Fritz Hans in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months HBR case study mentions - Fritz Hans 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Fritz Hans products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fritz Hans needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Fritz Hans, firm in the HBR case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Fritz Hans 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months, is just above the industry average. Fritz Hans 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Fritz Hans has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fritz Hans 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. Fritz Hans 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fritz Hans is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Fritz Hans 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael Y. Yoshino, Carin-Isabel Knoop suggests that, Fritz Hans 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fritz Hans 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.
Opportunities Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months | 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fritz Hans 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Fritz Hans 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.
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 Fritz Hans in the consumer business. Now Fritz Hans can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fritz Hans has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Fritz Hans to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months case study. Fritz Hans can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Fritz Hans 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Fritz Hans can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fritz Hans 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fritz Hans to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Fritz Hans can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fritz Hans 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fritz Hans to increase its market reach. Fritz Hans 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Fritz Hans 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 Fritz Hans to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Fritz Hans 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fritz Hans 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.
Threats Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fritz Hans 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Fritz Hans with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Fritz Hans 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.
Environmental challenges
– Fritz Hans 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. Fritz Hans can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing wage structure of Fritz Hans
– 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 Fritz Hans.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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.
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 Fritz Hans in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Fritz Hans needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fritz Hans 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.
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. Fritz Hans can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Fritz Hans business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months, Fritz Hans 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 Fritz Hans needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.