Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation
Over the past decade, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) had developed a unique set of benefits and cultural amenities for its employees, including a beautiful residential campus, known as the Living Quarters (LQ), and an award winning international school from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade that by 2012 enrolled over 2,000 students. These amenities allowed the company to attract and retain high-quality employees at modest pay; however, the company had recently experienced some financial difficulties, a shrinking number of new available living spaces, and questions about how relevant it was for a semiconductor firm to be operating a school. Thus, these benefits now presented significant dilemmas for the SMIC management team, including how the company can justify the costs of these benefits to investors in the face of the company's other financial challenges.
Authors :: Christopher Marquis, Zucheng Zhou, Mo Chen, Heng Fan
Swot Analysis of "Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation" written by Christopher Marquis, Zucheng Zhou, Mo Chen, Heng Fan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Amenities Smic facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial analysis, Organizational culture, Public relations and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Amenities Smic, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Amenities Smic 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 Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Amenities Smic
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 Amenities Smic
Strengths Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Amenities Smic in Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Amenities Smic is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Amenities Smic 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 Amenities Smic in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Amenities Smic 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 Christopher Marquis, Zucheng Zhou, Mo Chen, Heng Fan 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.
High brand equity
– Amenities Smic has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Amenities Smic to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Amenities Smic digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Amenities Smic 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.
Organizational Resilience of Amenities Smic
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Amenities Smic does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Amenities Smic in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Amenities Smic is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Amenities Smic in the sector have low bargaining power. Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Amenities Smic to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Amenities Smic has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Amenities Smic 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Amenities Smic 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 Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 Amenities Smic 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Amenities Smic 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Amenities Smic 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Amenities Smic is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Christopher Marquis, Zucheng Zhou, Mo Chen, Heng Fan suggests that, Amenities Smic 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Amenities Smic 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Amenities Smic 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 - Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Amenities Smic 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Amenities Smic is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Amenities Smic needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Amenities Smic to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Amenities Smic 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 Amenities Smic has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation | 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 Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Amenities Smic 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Amenities Smic 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.
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. Amenities Smic can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Amenities Smic can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Amenities Smic 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Amenities Smic 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 Amenities Smic to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Amenities Smic 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Amenities Smic can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Amenities Smic is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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.
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 Amenities Smic in the consumer business. Now Amenities Smic can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Amenities Smic can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Amenities Smic 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Amenities Smic 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.
Threats Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation are -
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 Amenities Smic business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Amenities Smic can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Amenities Smic 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, Amenities Smic 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Amenities Smic has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Amenities Smic 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Amenities Smic with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Amenities Smic 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Amenities Smic is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Amenities Smic in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Amenities Smic can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Amenities Smic 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Amenities Smic.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 Building a Community at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation 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 Amenities Smic needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
