Swot Analysis of "United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing" written by Thomas Cross includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Postal Sourcing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Postal Sourcing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Postal Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Postal Sourcing
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 Postal Sourcing
Strengths United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Postal Sourcing in United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Postal Sourcing has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Postal Sourcing 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 Postal Sourcing in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Postal Sourcing 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 Postal Sourcing
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Postal Sourcing does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Postal Sourcing in the sector have low bargaining power. United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Postal Sourcing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Postal Sourcing to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Postal Sourcing to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Postal Sourcing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Postal Sourcing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Postal Sourcing 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.
Analytics focus
– Postal Sourcing 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 Thomas Cross 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.
Learning organization
- Postal Sourcing 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 Postal Sourcing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Postal Sourcing 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Postal Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Postal Sourcing 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Postal Sourcing 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. Postal Sourcing 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Thomas Cross suggests that, Postal Sourcing 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Postal Sourcing 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 - United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Postal Sourcing 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Postal Sourcing 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Postal Sourcing has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Postal Sourcing 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing, is just above the industry average. Postal Sourcing 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Postal Sourcing 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Postal Sourcing products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Postal Sourcing needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing | 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing are -
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 Postal Sourcing 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Postal Sourcing 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Postal Sourcing 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 Postal Sourcing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Postal Sourcing can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Postal Sourcing 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Postal Sourcing 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, United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Postal Sourcing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Postal Sourcing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Postal Sourcing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Postal Sourcing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Postal Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Postal Sourcing to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Postal Sourcing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Postal Sourcing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Postal Sourcing 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.
Threats United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing are -
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.
Increasing wage structure of Postal Sourcing
– 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 Postal Sourcing.
Environmental challenges
– Postal Sourcing 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. Postal Sourcing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Postal Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Postal Sourcing 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Postal Sourcing 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. Postal Sourcing needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Postal Sourcing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing, Postal Sourcing 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 .
Regulatory challenges
– Postal Sourcing 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Postal Sourcing 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. Postal Sourcing 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing 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 United States Postal Service: Office Products Sourcing 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 Postal Sourcing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
