After four months in his new position, the assistant operations manager of a family-run, mid-sized insurance company must deal with the performance issues of a long-time employee. The offender's high rate of errors and his slow completion times, along with his increasingly defiant attitude, have gone on for too long, especially since this performance is negatively affecting the other employees in the operations department. Since past efforts have done little to remedy the issues, the assistant operations manager knows his next move needs to resolve them. New to his role, he wants to ensure that he handles this difficult situation well.
Swot Analysis of "Rockwater Insurance" written by Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Trina Ruthes includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Assistant Offender's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rockwater Insurance case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rockwater Insurance casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rockwater Insurance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rockwater Insurance case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Assistant Offender's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Assistant Offender's 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 Rockwater Insurance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rockwater Insurance case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Assistant Offender's
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 Assistant Offender's
Strengths Rockwater Insurance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Assistant Offender's in Rockwater Insurance Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Assistant Offender's 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Assistant Offender's in the sector have low bargaining power. Rockwater Insurance has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Assistant Offender's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Rockwater Insurance 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Assistant Offender's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Assistant Offender's 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Assistant Offender's 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 Assistant Offender's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Assistant Offender's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Assistant Offender's 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 Rockwater Insurance HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Rockwater Insurance firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Assistant Offender's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Assistant Offender's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Assistant Offender's 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 Assistant Offender's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Rockwater Insurance Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Assistant Offender's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Rockwater Insurance 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Assistant Offender's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Rockwater Insurance 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 Assistant Offender's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Rockwater Insurance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rockwater Insurance are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Assistant Offender's has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Assistant Offender's has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Assistant Offender's 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Assistant Offender's, firm in the HBR case study Rockwater Insurance needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Rockwater Insurance HBR case study mentions - Assistant Offender's 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Rockwater Insurance 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 Rockwater Insurance can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Assistant Offender's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Assistant Offender's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Rockwater Insurance can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Rockwater Insurance, 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Rockwater Insurance, in the dynamic environment Assistant Offender's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Assistant Offender's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Rockwater Insurance 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 Assistant Offender's 's lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Assistant Offender's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Assistant Offender's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Rockwater Insurance | 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 Rockwater Insurance are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Assistant Offender's 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 Assistant Offender's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Assistant Offender's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Rockwater Insurance 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Assistant Offender's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Assistant Offender's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Assistant Offender's 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, Rockwater Insurance, 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
– Assistant Offender's 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Assistant Offender's 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Assistant Offender's 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Assistant Offender's 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Assistant Offender's in the consumer business. Now Assistant Offender's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Assistant Offender's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Assistant Offender's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Rockwater Insurance case study. Assistant Offender's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Assistant Offender's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Assistant Offender's 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
– Assistant Offender's 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 Rockwater Insurance - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Assistant Offender's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Rockwater Insurance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rockwater Insurance are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Assistant Offender's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Assistant Offender's 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Assistant Offender's 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 wage structure of Assistant Offender's
– 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 Assistant Offender's.
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 Assistant Offender's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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.
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. Assistant Offender's 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Assistant Offender's 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Assistant Offender's 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Assistant Offender's is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Assistant Offender's 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.
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. Assistant Offender's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Assistant Offender's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rockwater Insurance 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 Rockwater Insurance 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 Rockwater Insurance 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 Rockwater Insurance 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 Rockwater Insurance 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 Assistant Offender's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.