CASE STUDY (Chapter 4 - Strategic Management) You are the top management team of senior managers in a small company that provides software and technical training to the employees of larger companies. Your firm has not really had a formal strategy (let alone a statement of strategic vision or a mission statement). The company started when a group of friends who did freelance training decided to pool their company contracts and hire some additional help to meet the demand for their services, which exceeded their collective productivity. The company is now three years old and has a total of 35 employees, most of whom are trainers. The management team meets to discuss the firm's future and strategy. You suggest that the team conduct a simple SWOT analysis to inform you the discussions. The following is the collective group's assessment: Strengths The management team has done a good job of hiring people who have both solid technical capabilities and good teaching skills. There is a good pool of technical talent from the local university. The firm has a strong relationship with a few of the larger companies in the area. Weaknesses There has been some inconsistent pricing of training for clients based on case-by-case negotiations and relationships. Some contracts have high profit margins and some have low profit margins. Employees do not fully understand how the value provided to customers by the company compares to the value provided by competitors. The firm does not have a strategy for competing in the market and capturing future market share. Opportunities Demand seems to be reasonably strong and growing. There is potential for expanding geographically because some current customers have offices in other cities and have inquired about providing training in those locations. However, they do not want to pay the travel and lodging costs associated with trainers to those sites. Threats Some of the large "temp" agencies, like Manpower and Kelly. which do a lot of training of their temps, are beginning to market their training capabilities to their clients. The prices these firms are quoting are about 15 percent higher than your firm's prices. Customers are somewhat price- sensitive. The type of training your firm provides is difficult to differentiate from that provided by competitors. The real difference is not in the content of the training (everyone convers the same topics) but in how well trainers do the job and how much the students enjoy the experience and remember what they learned. Question: Based on this SWOT analysis, what Is your assessment of how the firm can provide superlor value to customers and achleve a competitive advantage