Case Study Description of Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever
The chief executive officer (CEO) of Rosch Innovations and his team had developed a kinetic power plant that used the buoyancy force of air in water to generate electricity. This breakthrough innovation defied old principles of physics and was therefore difficult to comprehend and communicate. The CEO and his team had grown their network behind the scenes, careful not to raise too much attention from the powerful German energy lobby in the beginning. They had selected partners and investors that Rosch could manage without losing control. The plan to pursue an initial public offering (IPO) was shaping up in 2016. Major clients and investors were on board, yet the energy lobby was trying to discredit the company and its founder. With major projects lined up for funding, what was the right strategy? Which type of endorsement would help mute the critics and lead the way for an unprecedented IPO? Matthias A. Tietz is affiliated with IE Universidad.
Swot Analysis of "Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever" written by Matthias Tietz includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Rosch Lobby facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IPO, IT and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rosch Lobby, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rosch Lobby 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rosch Lobby
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 Rosch Lobby
Strengths Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rosch Lobby in Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Rosch Lobby to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Rosch Lobby to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rosch Lobby 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Rosch Lobby has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rosch Lobby 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.
Learning organization
- Rosch Lobby 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 Rosch Lobby is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Rosch Lobby is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Lobby 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Rosch Lobby in the sector have low bargaining power. Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Rosch Lobby to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Rosch Lobby 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Rosch Lobby has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rosch Lobby to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Rosch Lobby is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Rosch Lobby is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Rosch Lobby 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Rosch Lobby, firm in the HBR case study Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Rosch Lobby is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever, is just above the industry average. Rosch Lobby 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.
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 Rosch Lobby supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Rosch Lobby vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Rosch Lobby 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Rosch Lobby is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever, in the dynamic environment Rosch Lobby has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rosch Lobby has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Rosch Lobby needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Lobby has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Rosch Lobby 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever | 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever are -
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. Rosch Lobby can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Rosch Lobby can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rosch Lobby is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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.
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. Rosch Lobby can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Rosch Lobby has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Rosch Lobby to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever case study. Rosch Lobby can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Rosch Lobby in the consumer business. Now Rosch Lobby can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Rosch Lobby 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Rosch Lobby 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rosch Lobby 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Rosch Lobby to increase its market reach. Rosch Lobby 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rosch Lobby 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.
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. Rosch Lobby 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. Rosch Lobby 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Rosch Lobby 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.
Threats Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rosch Lobby has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rosch Lobby 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Rosch Lobby 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Rosch Lobby 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.
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.
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 Rosch Lobby business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rosch Lobby 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever .
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 Rosch Lobby in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Rosch Lobby 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Rosch Lobby 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Rosch Lobby with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rosch Lobby is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Rosch Lobby needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Rosch Lobby.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Innovations: Preparing the Biggest IPO Ever 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 Rosch Lobby needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
