Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant"
The national head of sales for consumer business for one of India's largest paint companies was anxious and concerned about the plummeting levels of employee engagement at his company. He was also aware of an increasing number of complaints about employee's attitudes and their approach towards both work and the organization from people in senior management. As a seasoned business manager, he knew that he needed to understand and address the gaps between the employee's expectations and the needs of the organization.
Swot Analysis of "Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant"" written by Upasna A. Agarwal, Rajen Gupta includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Employee's Paints facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Negotiations and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant"
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Employee's Paints, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Employee's Paints 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Employee's Paints
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 Employee's Paints
Strengths Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Employee's Paints in Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Employee's Paints
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Employee's Paints does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Employee's Paints in the sector have low bargaining power. Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Employee's Paints to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Employee's Paints 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Employee's Paints 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 Employee's Paints 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Employee's Paints to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Employee's Paints to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Employee's Paints is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Employee's Paints 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 Employee's Paints in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Employee's Paints in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Employee's Paints has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Employee's Paints 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.
Learning organization
- Employee's Paints 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 Employee's Paints is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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 Employee's Paints has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant", in the dynamic environment Employee's Paints has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Employee's Paints has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Employee's Paints 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Employee's Paints 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Employee's Paints 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, Employee's Paints is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Employee's Paints 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Employee's Paints, firm in the HBR case study Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Upasna A. Agarwal, Rajen Gupta suggests that, Employee's Paints 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant", 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.
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 Employee's Paints supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant", it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Employee's Paints vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" | 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Employee's Paints 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Employee's Paints can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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.
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. Employee's Paints can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Employee's Paints 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Employee's Paints 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 Employee's Paints 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Employee's Paints can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Employee's Paints operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Employee's Paints 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
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. Employee's Paints 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. Employee's Paints 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.
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 Employee's Paints in the consumer business. Now Employee's Paints 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, Employee's Paints 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Employee's Paints 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, Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant", to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Employee's Paints is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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
– Employee's Paints 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.
Threats Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Employee's Paints in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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. Employee's Paints can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Employee's Paints needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Employee's Paints.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Employee's Paints 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Employee's Paints 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Employee's Paints has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Employee's Paints 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
– Employee's Paints 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. Employee's Paints can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Employee's Paints is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Employee's Paints 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.
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 Employee's Paints in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant", Employee's Paints 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. Employee's Paints 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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 Asian Paints: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Employee "Engage-meant" 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 Employee's Paints needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.