Case Study Description of Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization
In 2009, after six years of operation and two negative audits, the president of the Canada Border Services Agency is thinking about initiating a reorganization to improve the way the agency is operated. Formed in 2003 from three government departments, the agency has been responsible for a range of activities represented by 90 acts and regulations that cover, for example, border security, immigration, food and plant inspection, intelligence and tax collection. Since its founding, the agency has grown substantially in the number of employees, who are spread out across the country in eight regions; some of them are in unions that are expert in the use of the news media to protect their members' interests. The lack of up-to-date communication equipment and the complexity of the organizational structure have resulted in an increased response time to matters that need immediate attention both within Canada and with international partners. No attempt has been made to streamline processes; every major initiative thus far has been focused on ensuring that nothing from the current workload gets dropped, processes remain intact and stronger controls are put in place. The president's challenge is to determine how to initiate anticipatory change. He has a limited term and needs to prepare a detailed action plan if he wants the changes to take effect before he leaves.
Swot Analysis of "Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization" written by Jean-Louis Schaan, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Agency Border facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Agency Border, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Agency Border 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Agency Border
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 Agency Border
Strengths Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Agency Border in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Agency Border has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Agency Border is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Agency Border has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Agency Border 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 Agency Border
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Agency Border does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Agency Border to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Agency Border to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Agency Border in the sector have low bargaining power. Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Agency Border to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Agency Border in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Agency Border digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Agency Border 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.
Learning organization
- Agency Border 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 Agency Border is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Agency Border 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.
Analytics focus
– Agency Border 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 Jean-Louis Schaan, Ken Mark 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
– Agency Border is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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.
Weaknesses Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Agency Border 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Agency Border 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 - Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Agency Border is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization, it seems that the employees of Agency Border 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jean-Louis Schaan, Ken Mark suggests that, Agency Border 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization HBR case study mentions - Agency Border takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Agency Border, firm in the HBR case study Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization, is just above the industry average. Agency Border 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Agency Border 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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 Agency Border has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization | 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Agency Border 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Agency Border to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Agency Border 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Agency Border can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Agency Border 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Agency Border 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Agency Border 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Agency Border is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Agency Border 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Agency Border 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 Agency Border to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Agency Border 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Agency Border 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.
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. Agency Border can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Agency Border 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, Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Agency Border has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Agency Border 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
– Agency Border 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. Agency Border can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing wage structure of Agency Border
– 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 Agency Border.
Regulatory challenges
– Agency Border 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization, Agency Border 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 .
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. Agency Border 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Agency Border with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Agency Border can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Agency Border is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Agency Border in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Agency Border.
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 Agency Border business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Agency Border 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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 Canada Border Services Agency: The Reorganization 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 Agency Border needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
