Case Study Description of Columbia's Final Mission
Describes the 16-day final mission of the space shuttle Columbia in January 2003 in which seven astronauts died. Includes background on NASA and the creation of the human space flight program, including the 1970 Apollo 13 crisis and 1986 Challenger disaster. Examines NASA's organizational culture, leadership, and the influences on the investigation of and response to foam shedding from the external fuel tank during shuttle launch.
Authors :: Richard Bohmer, Laura R. Feldman, Erika M. Ferlins, Amy C. Edmondson
Swot Analysis of "Columbia's Final Mission" written by Richard Bohmer, Laura R. Feldman, Erika M. Ferlins, Amy C. Edmondson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Shuttle Astronauts facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Columbia's Final Mission case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Leading teams, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Columbia's Final Mission casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Columbia's Final Mission
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Columbia's Final Mission case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shuttle Astronauts, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shuttle Astronauts 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 Columbia's Final Mission can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Columbia's Final Mission case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shuttle Astronauts
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 Shuttle Astronauts
Strengths Columbia's Final Mission | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shuttle Astronauts in Columbia's Final Mission Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Shuttle Astronauts 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 Shuttle Astronauts in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shuttle Astronauts digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Columbia's Final Mission firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shuttle Astronauts to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shuttle Astronauts to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shuttle Astronauts is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Columbia's Final Mission are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Shuttle Astronauts is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Shuttle Astronauts
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Shuttle Astronauts 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 Shuttle Astronauts in the sector have low bargaining power. Columbia's Final Mission has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shuttle Astronauts to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shuttle Astronauts 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 Columbia's Final Mission HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Shuttle Astronauts 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 Shuttle Astronauts is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Columbia's Final Mission Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Shuttle Astronauts is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Columbia's Final Mission Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Shuttle Astronauts has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Columbia's Final Mission 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 Shuttle Astronauts in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Columbia's Final Mission | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Columbia's Final Mission are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Columbia's Final Mission, in the dynamic environment Shuttle Astronauts has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shuttle Astronauts has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shuttle Astronauts 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 - Columbia's Final Mission should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Richard Bohmer, Laura R. Feldman, Erika M. Ferlins, Amy C. Edmondson suggests that, Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Shuttle Astronauts, firm in the HBR case study Columbia's Final Mission needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shuttle Astronauts 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. Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Shuttle Astronauts products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shuttle Astronauts needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Columbia's Final Mission HBR case study mentions - Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Columbia's Final Mission, is just above the industry average. Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Opportunities Columbia's Final Mission | 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 Columbia's Final Mission are -
Loyalty marketing
– Shuttle Astronauts 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
– Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shuttle Astronauts 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, Columbia's Final Mission, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shuttle Astronauts 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.
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 Shuttle Astronauts in the consumer business. Now Shuttle Astronauts 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 Shuttle Astronauts has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Shuttle Astronauts to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Columbia's Final Mission case study. Shuttle Astronauts can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shuttle Astronauts to increase its market reach. Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shuttle Astronauts can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shuttle Astronauts operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Shuttle Astronauts can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shuttle Astronauts 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 Shuttle Astronauts to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Shuttle Astronauts 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.
Threats Columbia's Final Mission External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Columbia's Final Mission are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Columbia's Final Mission, Shuttle Astronauts 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 .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Shuttle Astronauts 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shuttle Astronauts is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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.
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 Shuttle Astronauts.
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 Shuttle Astronauts business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Shuttle Astronauts 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. Shuttle Astronauts can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Shuttle Astronauts with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Shuttle Astronauts 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.
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. Shuttle Astronauts can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shuttle Astronauts 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 Columbia's Final Mission .
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. Shuttle Astronauts needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Columbia's Final Mission 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 Columbia's Final Mission 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 Columbia's Final Mission 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 Columbia's Final Mission 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 Columbia's Final Mission 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 Shuttle Astronauts needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.