Case Study Description of V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant
This is information for one of the six roles to be used in the V-Cola negotiation exercise. Please see V-Cola General Instructions (912043) and Teaching note (912042) for full information.
Swot Analysis of "V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant" written by Ian I. Larkin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cola Sultant facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Knowledge management, Marketing, Negotiations, Risk management and Communication.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cola Sultant, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cola Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cola Sultant
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Communication field.
4. Making a Communication topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cola Sultant
Strengths V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cola Sultant in V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Cola Sultant is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cola Sultant 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cola Sultant 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cola Sultant is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Cola Sultant has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cola Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Cola Sultant
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cola Sultant does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Cola Sultant 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 Cola Sultant is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cola Sultant in the sector have low bargaining power. V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cola Sultant to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cola Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant - 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
– Cola Sultant is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cola Sultant in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Communication 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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 Cola Sultant has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cola Sultant is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cola Sultant 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.
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 Cola Sultant supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cola Sultant vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Cola Sultant, firm in the HBR case study V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cola Sultant products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cola Sultant needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant HBR case study mentions - Cola Sultant 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cola Sultant is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communication segment. Cola Sultant needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cola Sultant to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant, is just above the industry average. Cola Sultant 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cola Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant | 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant are -
Manufacturing automation
– Cola Sultant can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communication 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cola Sultant 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, V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cola Sultant 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cola Sultant to increase its market reach. Cola Sultant 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 Communication industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cola Sultant 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. Cola Sultant 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Cola Sultant can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cola Sultant has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Cola Sultant to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant case study. Cola Sultant 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 Cola Sultant 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 Communication segment.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cola Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cola Sultant to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communication industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cola Sultant can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cola Sultant is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cola Sultant can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cola Sultant operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communication sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cola Sultant 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.
Threats V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Cola Sultant with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cola Sultant is facing in Communication sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cola Sultant has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communication industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cola Sultant needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communication 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cola Sultant 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.
Increasing wage structure of Cola Sultant
– 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 Cola Sultant.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communication field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cola Sultant 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. Cola Sultant 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. Cola Sultant needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communication industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Cola Sultant business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Cola Sultant 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 Communication industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cola Sultant 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cola Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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 V-Cola: Confidential Instructions for Connie Sultant 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 Cola Sultant needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.