SWOT Analysis and PESTEL Analysis of Celeritas Inc - Case Study Example

Management Case Study Questions Analyze the company situation (if they are doing good or not) (SWOT analysis & PESTEL analysis). Celeritas Inc. is a leading firm in the network optimization industry despite the sales and marketing challenges it is facing. It steadily grew since its inception in the year 2003 up to 2008, when it started to register slumps in its revenue. Therefore, in order to have a critical analysis of its situation, SWOT and PESTEL tools of analysis would be used. SWOT Analysis SWOT stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. It is an analysis and audit tool that examines the strategic position of a business enterprise and its environment (Boxall & Purcell 2011). It acts as a foundation for assessing the internal limitations and potentials of an organization, as well as the probable opportunities and threats that may come from the external environments (Kew & Stredwick 2010). Strengths: Celeritas Inc. had a competitive advantage over its competitors, and this can be attributed to consistent increase in revenue in the initial years after its creation. Celeritas performed registered growth since its three founders had a strong working relation. The three founders consulted one another; thus, making informed decisions that propelled the company into steady growth (Beer & Vargas 2011). Weakness: Celeritas is facing some weakness that hinders its competitiveness in the market. For instance, the company lacks defined goals and objectives. This is a major weakness since the employees do not understand why they are working and what they are to achieve at the end of the day. This implies that they do not have the driving force that compels them to work. Secondly, the company’s departments do not coordinate their activities together. In this way, the top officials in the various departments are constantly at loggerheads; thus, hindering the performance of the company. Thirdly, the company is facing problems since the top level managers do not trust one another. They do not do their work the way they are supposed to do. This is attributed to lack of surety as to whether their counterparts will meet their deadlines. Opportunities: Celeritas Inc. should venture into other business opportunities in order to increase its revenue, as well compete effectively with its competitors. For instance, they should invest in cloud computing fully without having second thoughts about it. In this way, they will seize the opportunity and work its way up towards improving its revenues. Threats: Celeritas Inc. is facing serious threat from its competitors. The company’s Sales and Marketing department is performing dismally since its marketing team is half the number that of its competitors. In this way, they cannot match up to what their competitors are doing in terms of market penetration; thus, they will always be one step behind. Additionally, other companies have ventured into the market that was previously being enjoyed by Celeritas Inc. Therefore, Celeritas should seek ways to compete with them. 2. Analyze the history of the organization, past, present and future recommendations. The company was created in the year, 2003 by three engineers. Being one of the first organizations to offer WAN accelerators, Celeritas Inc. enjoyed a steady growth up to 2008. The steady growth could be attributed to the fact that decision making in the company was conducted by three founders after wide consultations. In this way, chances of inconsistent decision making were minimal. This motivated the employees to work since they knew that whatever they had been instructed to do would not be reverted later, and their input and effort in performing their tasks would not go to waste. The company at the present time is being run by the CEO, Philip Boyer, after the other two funders got commitments elsewhere. Philip Boyer is facing problems since the company’s revenue is dropping at an alarming rate. Surprisingly, all fingers are pointed at him since he make decisions without consulting all the twenty one Vice-Presidents of the company. Additionally, he is unsure of what business opportunities to venture in giving the company’s business competitors an edge of them. For instance, he failed to embrace cloud computing at the beginning. This gave room for the Celeritas Inc. competitors advance at its expense. The company’s decline in revenue has prompted the resignation of the Senior Vice President in charge of Sales and Marketing. Therefore, they should field an individual who embraces dialogue and is willing to coordinate his department’s activities with the other departments. Additionally, the individual should have strategies of improving the image of the company in the customers’ eyes, as well as countering the effect the rival companies have on the market. The company’s twenty one Vice-Presidents should also be included in future key decision making process. This is because their input and opinions is needed for the success of the business. 3. Did they really need a consultant for their company? Yes /No, elaborate. I strongly believe that Celeritas Inc. needed a consultant. This is because there are some issues they had overlooked as members of one team. Therefore, they needed a third party and a specialist to help them see some of their pitfalls. Additionally, there was tension between some top executives in the company, yet they were not talking about. These tensions hindered the performance of these individuals since they could not face one another and discuss issues that are of importance to the company. For instance, Dave Lloyd was not in good terms with the CEO, and surprisingly they were making minimal efforts to resolve their differences. The consultant; therefore, was needed to act as go-between any two conflicting parties within the company. 4. Analyze the role of the consultant if it was effective or not? And did they succeed or fail? One-to-one meeting The consultant’s one-to-one meeting with the five Senior Vice-Presidents and later with some of the vocal Junior Vice- Presidents was successful. This is because she used the meetings to get through to the individuals and understand the problems that the company was facing. It is worth noting that the consultant used the findings from the one-to-one meeting with the SVPs to form the basis of the team building retreat. Team building activities The team building activities between the CEO and SVPs was successful. The consultant played an integral role in ensuring that the SVPs expressed their concerns as to what could be the problem in the company. The retreat gave the top executives a forum to air their opinions, as well as their displeasure with other executives. In this way, they were tackling the problem that had been overlooked for a long time. It also made the top executives of the company realize their mistakes. This prompted them promise to initiate changes that would see the company go back to its former days of glory. Role of the consultant The consultant’s role was to identify the problem that was affecting the company and advise the company executives on the best way forward. Her main role was to assist the company in having a successful organizational change that would make it return to its former glorious days (Beer & Vargas 2011). I would say she succeeded in making the company realize some of its pitfalls that are responsible for the drop in revenues. The team building activities with the senior executives made them realize the areas that needed immediate attention. However, she failed to make the company executive put into practice the resolutions they had made. The reaction the team building activities obtained from the twenty one Junior Vice Presidents ruined everything that they had achieved so far. She could have used her consultancy skills to bring them on board and effect change that would turn around the company’s misfortunes. 5. HR related solutions if he did not use a consultant. There are other ways that Cerelitas Inc. could have used to solve the problem apart from using a consultant. For instance, the CEO could have ensured that he has regular joint meetings with both Senior Vice-Presidents and Junior Vice-Presidents. In these regular meetings the CEO and the company’s executives would share views and opinions on how to run the company. Moreover, the decisions made on behalf of the company would have a majority support; thus, cases of decisions being reverted would be unheard of. Bibliography Beer, M. & Vargas, I., 2011. Celeritas, Inc.: Leadership Challenges in a Fast-Growth Industry, Allston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School. Boxall, P. & Purcell, J., 2011. Strategy and Human Resource Management, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kew, J. & Stredwick, J., 2010. Human Resource Management in Context 3rd ed., Wimbledon, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Read More