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Determining the feasibility of a plan is a crucial part in determining whether or not to invest resources in to its execution. Part II of the strategic business plan is to develop a strengths, weaknesses, opportunity, threat, and trend analysis, otherwise known as an SWOTT Analysis. A SWOTT analysis is required to discern whether or not a new product, service, or business unit will be an added value to clients, or in our case a key channel partner. The training, alignment, initiative team (TAIT) business unit's leadership team will review external and internal forces and trends that will affect how they do business with and service a very large strategic partner to build effectiveness thereby making it more efficient and hence more productive as well as profitable overall.

This will, as a necessity, drive significant change and require that those at Schneider Electric adapt to this change. Additionally, we will evaluate the extended supply change, core competencies of the offer, and how this will impact all stakeholders from the perspective of legal, economic, and regulatory forces and trends. The TAIT team will identify and evaluate relevant forces internally and externally to take advantage of internal strengths and weaknesses while clearly understanding external opportunities and threats. By understand these forces clearly before undertaking such an initiative leadership will be better positioned to set and reach strategic goals defined by the initiative.

Forces and Trends

“An external audit focuses on identifying and evaluating trends and events beyond the control of a single firm, such as increased foreign competition, population shifts to coastal areas of the United States, an aging society, and taxing Internet sales. An external audit reveals key opportunities and threats confronting an organization, so managers can formulate strategies to take advantage of the opportunities and avoid or reduce the impact of threats" (David 60). Conversely the internal audit focusses on strengths and weaknesses that the organization can control. These forces combined collectively form the basis in which an organization can effectively set its strategic goals. The SWOTT to be performed in preparation to deploy the TAIT team has identified a number of forces and trends that are most important to rationalize when determining whether it is feasible to proceed with investing the required resources needed to effectively fund a new team designed to implement the strategy. Forces such as legal, regulatory, economic, and the competitive landscape are external environmental forces. Internal factors such as our specific strategy, processes, technologies, headcount are factors that we alone have influence over.

Legal and regulatory forces certainly can be threatening in that new laws and regulations, particularly those that are directed at publicly traded organizations, can certainly pose a threat. An example of this would be the Sarbanes Oxley Act (Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act) and how it dramatically effected the accounting and auditing practices of publicly traded companies. Economic forces such as tax reforms that were not previously considered during budget cycles can certainly have a detrimental effect on resourcing.

Internal forces and trends are certainly within the control of management. As plans are managed we are continuously looking to steer our actions as to realize the desired results in our metrics. This to improve and maintain the competitive advantage for Schneider Electric and our partner. A successful strategy with proper feedback loops drive to continuous improvement and will guarantee effective initiative development and results. By understanding internal needs our processes and systems are will be designed around our strategic initiatives goals driving efficiency and as productivity. Working closely with human resources is certainly a force we can control. We will need to recruit, hire, train, and develop new resources as well as attract high value long term seasoned employees with a vast knowledge of our value-chain. HR will be utilized to development programs that will drive employee retention.

How Well the Organization Adapts to Change

There are many driving forces behind organizational change. Organizations need to be responsive to these forces lest they risk losing competitive edge, being relegated out of key industries that they participate in, or missing opportunities to integrate their organizations horizontally or vertically. At these critical junctions’ executive management must be capable of certain problem identification where change managers need to be utilized to successfully see change strategies successfully implemented.

Having worked for Schneider Electric for over ten years and having seen many very large reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, and horizontal integrations such as the TAIT strategy. Initiatives that required the application of a great deal of change management. Adding new units and teams also requires large change initiatives. Challenges presented were many with the most difficult being the cultural differences between the two groups. The most important factor by far that we can certainly control is what is called the tone at the top. Business units and teams are affected, negatively or positively, by the tenor and behaviors that are demonstrated at the leaderships levels. As we deploy the TAIT team this will be very influential as the team adopts its goals.

The Supply Chain

A supply chain is a series of processes linked together to produce a product or service. Each of the steps in the supply chain add value to the end product or service. As a large manufacturer of electrical and energy equipment Schneider Electric needs to maintain strategic relationships with industrial wholesalers and supply chains. In manufacturing, much attention is focused on upstream supplies. In the case of the proposed TAIT team we are much more focused on the downstream supply chain where the finished goods are warehoused and distributed to OEM and end-user customers. This is where the value of a strategic partner becomes very evident. Strategic distribution partners, particularly large organizations with multiple branch locations and the ability to warehouse locally the market specific products. Additionally, partners such as these limit the number of end-user customers the manufacturer needs to contract business with and provide custom designed financing terms. This makes tremendous impact in overall efficiencies as they can individually focus in each of the geographical districts.

Uncovered Issues and Opportunities the Company Faces

The identified opportunities that are driving the need for the TAIT team are centered around several strategic initiatives which will be further addressed in the subsequent balanced scorecard. Initially these have been identified as development of distributor led projects, residential “over the counter” business, internal business development manager teams, selling services, and Industrial account development. Each will require training around developing effective proposals, developing unique product promotions, recruiting internal skilled resources, and challenge of exposing each other’s internal processes and procedures through multiple departments.

Conclusion

The planned deployment of the Training, Alignment, Initiative Integration Team will benefit by performing this SWOTT analysis. It is in part designed to determine the feasibility of such a team. Understanding the internal and external factors that are directly related to our strategic initiatives and goals will drive the investment of resources into the team and provide a means to direct initiatives, measure success, and determine tactical adjustments to keep our collective goals on track.

References

David, Fred R., David, Forest R. Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts and Cases, 16th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions, 4/2016. VitalBook file.

Schneider Electric. (2018). Schneider Electric Company Profile. Retrieved February 3, 2018 from the World Wide Web: https://www.schneider-electric.us/en/about-us/company-profile/