Case Study Description of MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative
In March 2015, consulting firm MacPhie & Company was at a crossroads. Founded in 2004 in Toronto, Ontario, the company offered consulting services related to strategy development, marketing and communications, reputation management, and branding. MacPhie & Company maintained an entrepreneurial culture that fostered innovation and continual learning, while ensuring that all client projects followed the "MacPhie Way." Although MacPhie & Company had been financially successful over the years, it had struggled with growth, so the company's founder set a goal of growing MacPhie & Company to at least 20 consultants by 2020. He knew that in order to do that, he would need to consider all facets of the business: revenue generation to support a larger model; ensuring consistent profit margins; appropriate client mix; the services that were offered; teachable methodologies and consulting processes; effective organizational structure and human resources; geographic locations; and the employment of awareness-building efforts. After more than a decade, it was time to be bold and push MacPhie & Company to the next level. With the goal set, the challenge was how to get to the desired level of growth and then to sustain that level of growth once it had been reached. Karin Schnarr is affiliated with Wilfrid Laurier University. David Kunsch is affiliated with St. John Fisher College
Swot Analysis of "MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative" written by Karin Schnarr, David Kunsch includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Macphie Consulting facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication, Organizational culture, Public relations, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Macphie Consulting, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Macphie Consulting 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Macphie Consulting
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 Macphie Consulting
Strengths MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Macphie Consulting in MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Macphie Consulting in the sector have low bargaining power. MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Macphie Consulting to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Macphie Consulting is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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.
Organizational Resilience of Macphie Consulting
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Macphie Consulting 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 Macphie Consulting 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Macphie Consulting 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Macphie Consulting is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Macphie Consulting 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 Macphie Consulting 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
– Macphie Consulting has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Macphie Consulting has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Macphie Consulting in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Macphie Consulting 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Macphie Consulting 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Macphie Consulting is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Macphie Consulting 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Macphie Consulting 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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 Macphie Consulting 's lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Macphie Consulting 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 - MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Macphie Consulting, firm in the HBR case study MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Macphie Consulting supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Macphie Consulting vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative, it seems that the employees of Macphie Consulting 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Macphie Consulting 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Macphie Consulting is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Macphie Consulting products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Macphie Consulting needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative | 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Macphie Consulting 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 Macphie Consulting to increase its market reach. Macphie Consulting 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.
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. Macphie Consulting 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. Macphie Consulting 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Macphie Consulting 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.
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 Macphie Consulting 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Macphie Consulting has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Macphie Consulting to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative case study. Macphie Consulting can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Macphie Consulting 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, MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Macphie Consulting is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Macphie Consulting 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Macphie Consulting to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Macphie Consulting in the consumer business. Now Macphie Consulting can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Macphie Consulting 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Macphie Consulting can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Macphie Consulting can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative are -
Regulatory challenges
– Macphie Consulting 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Macphie Consulting is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. Macphie Consulting needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Macphie Consulting can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Macphie Consulting will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Macphie Consulting with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Macphie Consulting in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Macphie Consulting 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.
Increasing wage structure of Macphie Consulting
– 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 Macphie Consulting.
Environmental challenges
– Macphie Consulting 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. Macphie Consulting can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Macphie Consulting 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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 MacPhie & Company: The Growth Imperative 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 Macphie Consulting needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
