Case Study Description of Reading Global Clients' Signals
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Managing employees who work together globally is an ongoing challenge for executives of large organizations. The ability to quickly detect changes in the health of relationships with clients can unlock significant value. Many companies monitor customer satisfaction through customer satisfaction surveys, such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) pioneered by Bain & Co. However, such methods are limited in their ability to provide frequent, detailed and cost-effective evaluations.The way people interact with each other and what they say offer an important window into how they feel about each other. However, the content of what is said is often less significant than how it is said and the accompanying body language. Although face-to-face meetings between providers and customers may offer the clearest and most comprehensive way for managers to gauge customer satisfaction, such information is not generally available in high-volume, globalized collaborations. The authors have developed an assessment method for analyzing email communication patterns between customers and vendors in geographically distributed environments where face-to-face meetings are impractical or impossible. In conducting the research, the authors analyzed the email interactions of 32 service delivery organizations -all part of Genpact, a large global services provider. After notifying the various parties involved and obtaining permissions, the authors retrieved the communications between account managers and their customers and constructed the social network. The authors collected the email boxes of two to three account executives per customer studied and compared the network structure of the communications to the customer's NPS, which was the primary customer satisfaction metric Genpact had been using. The authors also collected the email headers from incoming and outgoing emails for the account executives over a period of eight months. The researchers compared the structure of the resulting communication network with the NPS scores. The authors acknowledge that the method is specifically based on email analysis, and thus it is poorly suited to work contexts where email is not widely employed. In the future, they suggest that it might be possible to adapt the methodology to other electronic media, such as instant messaging services and voice-over-IP telephony.
Swot Analysis of "Reading Global Clients' Signals" written by Peter Gloor, Gianni Giacomelli includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Email Nps facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Reading Global Clients' Signals case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Reading Global Clients' Signals casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Reading Global Clients' Signals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Reading Global Clients' Signals case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Email Nps, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Email Nps 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Reading Global Clients' Signals case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Email Nps
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 Email Nps
Strengths Reading Global Clients' Signals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Email Nps in Reading Global Clients' Signals Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Email Nps is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Reading Global Clients' Signals are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Email Nps in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Email Nps 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.
Training and development
– Email Nps has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Reading Global Clients' Signals Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Email Nps has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Email Nps 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Email Nps in the sector have low bargaining power. Reading Global Clients' Signals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Email Nps to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Email Nps 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Email Nps digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Email Nps 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Email Nps is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Reading Global Clients' Signals 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
– Email Nps 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 Email Nps in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Email Nps is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Reading Global Clients' Signals are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Reading Global Clients' Signals, is just above the industry average. Email Nps 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 Email Nps supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Reading Global Clients' Signals, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Email Nps vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Email Nps has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Email Nps even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Email Nps 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Email Nps has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Email Nps is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals, in the dynamic environment Email Nps has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Email Nps has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Reading Global Clients' Signals, it seems that the employees of Email Nps 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Email Nps products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Email Nps needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Email Nps is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Email Nps needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Email Nps to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Peter Gloor, Gianni Giacomelli suggests that, Email Nps 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.
Opportunities Reading Global Clients' Signals | 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Email Nps 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, Reading Global Clients' Signals, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Email Nps can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Email Nps operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Email Nps 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. Email Nps 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.
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 Email Nps 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Email Nps 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Email Nps 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
– Email Nps 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Email Nps can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Email Nps 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Email Nps to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Email Nps can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Reading Global Clients' Signals 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Email Nps 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Email Nps 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 Email Nps to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Email Nps to increase its market reach. Email Nps 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.
Threats Reading Global Clients' Signals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Reading Global Clients' Signals are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Reading Global Clients' Signals, Email Nps may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Email Nps is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Email Nps with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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.
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. Email Nps can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Email Nps 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. Email Nps can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Email Nps 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.
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 Email Nps business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Email Nps 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.
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 Email Nps in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Email Nps 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Email Nps 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Reading Global Clients' Signals 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 Email Nps needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
