Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A)
The executive vice-president and chief operating officer (COO) of Canadian National Railway Company (CN), wants to change the culture at his organization. The COO has been promoted to his current position after CN purchased Illinois Central, and his first task is to review CN's operations across the country. He notices that employees are leaving work early, a practice called "early quits" that is supposed to reward employees for working harder during the day. He also notices there are other practices, such as late starts that encourage lower productivity. With the goal of improving productivity in mind, the COO elects to tackle the issue of late starts before fixing the early quits problem. This case introduces behavioural science as one of the many management tools that can be used to influence behaviour.
Swot Analysis of "Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A)" written by Stewart Thornhill, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Quits Cn facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Quits Cn, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Quits Cn 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Quits Cn
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 Quits Cn
Strengths Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Quits Cn in Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Quits Cn has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Quits Cn 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Quits Cn is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Quits Cn are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Quits Cn has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Quits Cn to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Quits Cn 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Quits Cn is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Quits Cn has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Quits Cn 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Quits Cn in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Quits Cn to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Quits Cn to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Quits Cn
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Quits Cn does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Quits Cn is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Quits Cn 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Quits Cn is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Quits Cn 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stewart Thornhill, Ken Mark suggests that, Quits Cn 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Quits Cn 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A), in the dynamic environment Quits Cn has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Quits Cn has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Quits Cn has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Quits Cn, firm in the HBR case study Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A), it seems that the employees of Quits Cn 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Quits Cn 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 - Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A), is just above the industry average. Quits Cn 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.
Opportunities Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) | 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Quits Cn 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.
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 Quits Cn 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Quits Cn 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Quits Cn can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Quits Cn 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Quits Cn 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Quits Cn to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Quits Cn can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Quits Cn can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Quits Cn has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Quits Cn to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) case study. Quits Cn can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Quits Cn can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Quits Cn 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Quits Cn to increase its market reach. Quits Cn will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Quits Cn can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Quits Cn operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Quits Cn 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Quits Cn 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Quits Cn has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Quits Cn 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.
Environmental challenges
– Quits Cn 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. Quits Cn can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Quits Cn 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.
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 Quits Cn business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Quits Cn
– 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 Quits Cn.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Quits Cn 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A), Quits Cn 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Quits Cn with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Quits Cn 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. Quits Cn 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Canadian National Railway Company: Culture Change (A) 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 Quits Cn needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.