Case Study Description of Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green
Shree Balaji Alumnicast Pvt. Ltd. (SBA) was a successful Indian metal recycling company and a pioneer in creating sustainable customer value through its closed-loop supply chain. In 2009, its biggest customer demanded a 15 per cent price reduction on alloys and threatened to withdraw its entire business if SBA failed to meet its demand within a given time frame. This customer contributed a significant share of SBA's revenue and was thus indispensable. SBA could not simultaneously offer a price discount and retain its margins, which were already declining, through its current business and manufacturing practices. The company needed to rethink its strategy in order to maintain its growth trajectory, and find a better way of managing costs. Ashutosh Dash is affiliated with Management Development Institute.
Swot Analysis of "Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green" written by Jitendar Khatri Bittoo, Ashutosh Dash includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sba Alumnicast facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy, Decision making, Entrepreneurship, International business, Manufacturing, Sustainability and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sba Alumnicast, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sba Alumnicast 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sba Alumnicast
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 Sba Alumnicast
Strengths Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sba Alumnicast in Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sba Alumnicast 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sba Alumnicast has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sba Alumnicast 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sba Alumnicast
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sba Alumnicast does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Sba Alumnicast is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Jitendar Khatri Bittoo, Ashutosh Dash can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sba Alumnicast is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sba Alumnicast in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Sba Alumnicast 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 Sba Alumnicast in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sba Alumnicast in the sector have low bargaining power. Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sba Alumnicast to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Sba Alumnicast is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sba Alumnicast 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sba Alumnicast 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sba Alumnicast, firm in the HBR case study Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sba Alumnicast is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jitendar Khatri Bittoo, Ashutosh Dash suggests that, Sba Alumnicast 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 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 Sba Alumnicast supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sba Alumnicast vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sba Alumnicast is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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 Sba Alumnicast has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green, it seems that the employees of Sba Alumnicast 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sba Alumnicast has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green, is just above the industry average. Sba Alumnicast 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sba Alumnicast 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green | 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sba Alumnicast 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sba Alumnicast 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, Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Sba Alumnicast 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. Sba Alumnicast 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sba Alumnicast 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sba Alumnicast to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sba Alumnicast 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 Sba Alumnicast to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Sba Alumnicast 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Sba Alumnicast can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sba Alumnicast can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sba Alumnicast operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sba Alumnicast 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.
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 Sba Alumnicast 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
– Sba Alumnicast 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.
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. Sba Alumnicast can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Sba Alumnicast in the consumer business. Now Sba Alumnicast can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sba Alumnicast can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Sba Alumnicast
– 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 Sba Alumnicast.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sba Alumnicast 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sba Alumnicast is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sba Alumnicast 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
– Sba Alumnicast has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sba Alumnicast 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
– Sba Alumnicast 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. Sba Alumnicast can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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.
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 Sba Alumnicast.
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 Sba Alumnicast in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Sba Alumnicast needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Sba Alumnicast 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sba Alumnicast 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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 Shree Balaji Alumnicast: Going Green 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 Sba Alumnicast needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
