Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan
Roshan is a highly successful telecommunications company founded by the Aga Khan fund for Economic Development in Afghanistan during an ongoing civil conflict. Company leaders must now decide financial and market strategy for the next phase of development of the company. Should they sell the company -- and reinvest the proceeds in another socially-oriented venture? Continue to operate and expand the company? Expand to other neighboring countries?
Swot Analysis of "Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan" written by Herman B. Leonard, Qahir Dhanani includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Roshan Afghanistan facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Ethics, Government, Security & privacy, Social responsibility and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Roshan Afghanistan, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Roshan Afghanistan
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 Roshan Afghanistan
Strengths Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Roshan Afghanistan in Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Roshan Afghanistan is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Analytics focus
– Roshan Afghanistan 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 Herman B. Leonard, Qahir Dhanani 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan Afghanistan in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan Afghanistan is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Roshan Afghanistan in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Roshan Afghanistan digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Roshan Afghanistan to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Roshan Afghanistan to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Roshan Afghanistan
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan Afghanistan in the sector have low bargaining power. Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Roshan Afghanistan to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Roshan Afghanistan is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Roshan Afghanistan 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 - Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Roshan Afghanistan is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Roshan Afghanistan needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Roshan Afghanistan to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Roshan Afghanistan supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Roshan Afghanistan vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Herman B. Leonard, Qahir Dhanani suggests that, Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Roshan Afghanistan 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. Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan HBR case study mentions - Roshan Afghanistan takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan Afghanistan has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Roshan Afghanistan, firm in the HBR case study Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan Afghanistan 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan | 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan are -
Loyalty marketing
– Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Roshan Afghanistan 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. Roshan Afghanistan can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Roshan Afghanistan to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Roshan Afghanistan 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. Roshan Afghanistan 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, Roshan Afghanistan can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Roshan Afghanistan operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Roshan Afghanistan has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Roshan Afghanistan to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan case study. Roshan Afghanistan can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan Afghanistan to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Roshan Afghanistan in the consumer business. Now Roshan Afghanistan can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Roshan Afghanistan can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Roshan Afghanistan can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Roshan Afghanistan can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Roshan Afghanistan 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Increasing wage structure of Roshan Afghanistan
– 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 Roshan Afghanistan.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Roshan Afghanistan demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Roshan Afghanistan in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Roshan Afghanistan 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.
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 Roshan Afghanistan.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Roshan Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Roshan Afghanistan 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
– Roshan Afghanistan has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Roshan Afghanistan 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan: Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan 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 Roshan Afghanistan needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.