GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport
An infrastructure conglomerate is facing serious challenges following its construction of a world-class airport. The group's leader possesses unique managerial skills, coherent leadership and clear vision, but the airport must contend with an unstable political and economic environment, both nationally and internationally, as well as a number of delays and bureaucratic hurdles. As a result of these external factors, revenues have been much lower than expected, in spite of the overall success of the group's groundbreaking airport project. The company's leader knows that it will take stringent steps and corrective action to confront these issues effectively.
Swot Analysis of "GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport" written by Sunita Mehta, Surya Kant Sharma includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Airport Group's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Airport Group's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Airport Group'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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Airport Group's
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 Airport Group's
Strengths GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Airport Group's in GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Airport Group'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 Airport Group's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Airport Group's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Airport Group'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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Airport Group's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Airport Group'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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Airport Group's in the sector have low bargaining power. GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Airport Group's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Airport Group'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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Airport Group'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.
Organizational Resilience of Airport Group's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Airport Group's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Airport Group'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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Airport Group's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Airport Group's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Airport Group's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Airport Group's 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.
Learning organization
- Airport Group's 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 Airport Group's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Airport Group's 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport, in the dynamic environment Airport Group's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Airport Group's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Airport Group's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Airport Group's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 Airport Group's 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Airport Group'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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Airport Group'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. Airport Group'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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Sunita Mehta, Surya Kant Sharma suggests that, Airport Group'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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Airport Group's, firm in the HBR case study GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport, it seems that the employees of Airport Group's 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 Airport Group's has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport | 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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Airport Group's 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 Airport Group'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 Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Airport Group's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Airport Group's in the consumer business. Now Airport Group's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Airport Group's can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Airport Group's can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
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 Airport Group'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.
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. Airport Group's 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. Airport Group's 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Airport Group's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Airport Group's can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Airport Group'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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Airport Group's to increase its market reach. Airport Group'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 Airport Group's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Airport Group's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport case study. Airport Group's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Airport Group's 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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport .
Regulatory challenges
– Airport Group'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 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 Airport Group's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Airport Group's 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
– Airport Group'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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Airport Group'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.
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 Airport Group's in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Airport Group's 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. Airport Group's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Airport Group's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Airport Group'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 Airport Group's.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport, Airport Group's 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 .
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. Airport Group's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 GMR Group: Leadership Challenges in Building a World-class Airport 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 Airport Group's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.