Case Study Description of ReedTrek Manufacturing (A)
The newly-promoted international operations director for ReedTrek Manufacturing, is trying to diagnose the issues at his company's under-performing China plant. While the operations director originally believed the loss-making operations suffered from technical issues, his visit to the plant suggests to him that there are leadership and management issues.
Swot Analysis of "ReedTrek Manufacturing (A)" written by Jane M. Howell, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Reedtrek Plant facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Manufacturing, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of ReedTrek Manufacturing (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Reedtrek Plant, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Reedtrek Plant 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Reedtrek Plant
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 Reedtrek Plant
Strengths ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Reedtrek Plant in ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Reedtrek Plant 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 lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Reedtrek Plant 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 Reedtrek Plant in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Reedtrek Plant is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Reedtrek Plant is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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
– Reedtrek Plant has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Reedtrek Plant 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Reedtrek Plant 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Reedtrek Plant has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Reedtrek Plant to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Reedtrek Plant 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 Jane M. Howell, 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.
Training and development
– Reedtrek Plant has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Reedtrek Plant in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Reedtrek Plant in the sector have low bargaining power. ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Reedtrek Plant to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) are -
Need for greater diversity
– Reedtrek Plant 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 Reedtrek Plant has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Reedtrek Plant 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 - ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Reedtrek Plant 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Reedtrek Plant 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. Reedtrek Plant 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Reedtrek Plant is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Reedtrek Plant needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Reedtrek Plant to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Reedtrek Plant is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Reedtrek Plant 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 Reedtrek Plant supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - ReedTrek Manufacturing (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Reedtrek Plant vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Reedtrek Plant has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study ReedTrek Manufacturing (A), 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.
Opportunities ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) | 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) are -
Manufacturing automation
– Reedtrek Plant 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.
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 Reedtrek Plant 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Reedtrek Plant is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Reedtrek Plant 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Reedtrek Plant can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Reedtrek Plant 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. Reedtrek Plant 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Reedtrek Plant 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Reedtrek Plant to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Reedtrek Plant in the consumer business. Now Reedtrek Plant can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Reedtrek Plant 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Reedtrek Plant 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Reedtrek Plant 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.
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. Reedtrek Plant can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Reedtrek Plant 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.
Threats ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Reedtrek Plant 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Reedtrek Plant is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Reedtrek Plant business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Reedtrek Plant
– 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 Reedtrek Plant.
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. Reedtrek Plant needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Reedtrek Plant 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.
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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Reedtrek Plant has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Reedtrek Plant 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Reedtrek Plant 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) .
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 Reedtrek Plant.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study ReedTrek Manufacturing (A), Reedtrek Plant 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 .
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 Reedtrek Plant in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 ReedTrek Manufacturing (A) 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 Reedtrek Plant needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
