Swot Analysis of "Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President" written by David A. Garvin, Lynne C. Levesque includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Staples Regional facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational structure, Strategy execution and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Staples Regional, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Staples Regional 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Staples Regional
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 Staples Regional
Strengths Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Staples Regional in Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Staples Regional are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Staples Regional has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Staples Regional to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Staples Regional 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Staples Regional in the sector have low bargaining power. Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Staples Regional to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Staples Regional digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Staples Regional 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Staples Regional 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Staples Regional in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Staples Regional is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Staples Regional to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Staples Regional to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Staples Regional
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Staples Regional does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Staples Regional 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 Staples Regional is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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.
Weaknesses Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Staples Regional is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Staples Regional 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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 Staples Regional has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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 Staples Regional 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Staples Regional 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, David A. Garvin, Lynne C. Levesque suggests that, Staples Regional 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Staples Regional 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 - Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President, 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President, it seems that the employees of Staples Regional 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President, in the dynamic environment Staples Regional has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Staples Regional 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, Staples Regional 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.
Opportunities Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President | 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President are -
Manufacturing automation
– Staples Regional 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Staples Regional 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Staples Regional has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Staples Regional to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President case study. Staples Regional can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Staples Regional 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Staples Regional 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 Staples Regional to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Staples Regional to increase its market reach. Staples Regional 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.
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 Staples Regional 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Staples Regional can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Staples Regional 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Staples Regional 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Staples Regional 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Staples Regional to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Staples Regional 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Staples Regional is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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.
Threats Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Staples Regional.
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 Staples Regional business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Staples Regional
– 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 Staples Regional.
Regulatory challenges
– Staples Regional 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, Staples Regional 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Staples Regional 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Staples Regional 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 Staples Regional in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Staples Regional 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.
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.
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. Staples Regional 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.
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. Staples Regional 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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 Management Levels at Staples (D): Regional Vice President 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 Staples Regional needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
