Case Study Description of Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A)
Chris Watson, a customer service representative at Unity Airways, had just begun to address the rebooking of Melissa White, one of the almost 100 passengers whose intineraries would have to change due to an in-flight emergency with a Washington-Chicago flight. White's ultimate destination was Hong Kong; unfortunately, all the available rebooking alternatives involved at least a one-day delay in her arrival. Watson needed to take care of White's needs as expeditiously as possible; the customer service queue still had 25 passengers in it.
Authors :: Sherwood C. Frey, Lucien Bass, Elaine Yu
Swot Analysis of "Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A)" written by Sherwood C. Frey, Lucien Bass, Elaine Yu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Watson White's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Communication.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices,
there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Watson White's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Watson White's 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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Watson White's
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Communication field.
4. Making a Communication topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Watson White's
Strengths Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Watson White's in Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Watson White's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Watson White's 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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Watson White's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Watson White's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Watson White's 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.
Training and development
– Watson White's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Watson White's 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
– Watson White's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Watson White's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Watson White's 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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Watson White's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Watson White's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Watson White's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Communication field
– Watson White's 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 Watson White's 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 Watson White's 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.
Weaknesses Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Watson White's, firm in the HBR case study Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A), is just above the industry average. Watson White's 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Watson White's 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. Watson White's 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A), in the dynamic environment Watson White's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Watson White's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sherwood C. Frey, Lucien Bass, Elaine Yu suggests that, Watson White's 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) 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 Watson White's 's lucrative customers.
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 Watson White's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Watson White's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Watson White's 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Watson White's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Watson White's 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 - Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Watson White's 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.
Opportunities Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Watson White's 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Watson White's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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.
Loyalty marketing
– Watson White's has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Watson White's 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 Watson White's 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 Watson White's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Watson White's in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communication segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Watson White's 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Watson White's can develop new processes and procedures in Communication 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.
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 Watson White's in the consumer business. Now Watson White's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Watson White's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Watson White's 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 Communication segment.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Watson White's to increase its market reach. Watson White's 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Watson White's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Watson White's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) case study. Watson White's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Unity Airways: Chris Watson (A) are -
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 Watson White's.
Increasing wage structure of Watson White's
– 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 Watson White's.
Regulatory challenges
– Watson White's 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 Communication industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Watson White's is facing in Communication sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Watson White's 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 Watson White's 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.
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. Watson White's 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.
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 Watson White's in the Communication sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Watson White's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communication industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Watson White's needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communication 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.
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. Watson White's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communication 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Watson White's 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.
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 Watson White's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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 Unity Airways: Chris Watson (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 Watson White's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.