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 - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization,
technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, 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 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fritz Hans 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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 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.
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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fritz Hans in the sector have low bargaining power. Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fritz Hans to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Strong track record of project management
– Fritz Hans is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
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 -
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months, 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, Fritz Hans 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Fritz Hans is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months, it seems that the employees of Fritz Hans don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Fritz Hans 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.
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.
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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fritz Hans 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 - Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fritz Hans is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Fritz Hans needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fritz Hans to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 -
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.
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. Fritz Hans 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. Fritz Hans 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fritz Hans can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fritz Hans operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fritz Hans is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Fritz Hans 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 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 -
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fritz Hans 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 Hans Fritz at Novartis Thailand (D): The First 18 Months .
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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Fritz Hans 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.
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. Fritz Hans 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 Fritz Hans is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fritz Hans has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fritz Hans 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.
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 Fritz Hans.
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.
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.
