Abstract and Description
Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies is a US-based company providing full-stack cooling services for the businesses and individuals. With more than 30 years in business, the company is one of the vastly experienced players on the United States cooling market, providing a unique fusion of rich experience and the most state-of-the-art developments in cooling technology.
The company positions itself as a ‘one-stop’ solutions provider for its customers, i.e. it provides all services required for constructing, maintaining and demolishing a cooling tower or a water tank. The expertise domains of the company includes customized design and construction of the cooling towers and water tanks of different sizes and purposes, maintenance and repairs, fabrication services, placement and upgrades, welding, high-performance coating and diagnostics. The company successful record includes projects completed for the Fortune 500 corporations, as well as for the small local businesses.
At the same time, despite the fact that the company is comparatively successful in its market niche, the advent of modern technologies seriously changed this business landscapes. In particular, not only the companies operating in this field need to start using the new methods of manufacture, but also the new approaches to advertising and promotion are required. In addition to that, the importance of ‘staying green’ is gradually, but steadily becoming a necessary element of corporate survival in the today’s dynamic market (Kiechel, 2010; U.S. Department of Energy, 2008).
The purpose of this research is to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies internal and external business framework, specifically focusing on discussing its strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities. The final section of this report focuses on developing practical and implementable recommendations for preserving and increasing the market share of the company.
Internal Analysis
This section of the report aims at analyzing strengths and weaknesses of the organization, concluding which aspects of the company’s performance make it superior over the competitors, and which make the company vulnerable.
Strengths of the Company
Coupled with the relevant practical observations, the research revealed that the discussed company has particularly strong positions in the following areas:
Use of Manufacturing Technology
The company’s research & development department is one of the strongest in the industry. Due to large practical experience and many successful cases, the company is excellently informed about the existing needs of the industry, as well as it is skilled of harmonizing the recent technological advancements with the needs of the practice. In addition to that, the company is highly recognized in the industry technological communities. Thus, when any promising technology developed by other research institutions appears on the horizon, Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies is usually among the first companies to become aware of that.
This strength is one of the core competitive advantages of the company, because it helps it delivering the most effective solutions to the customers ahead of the key competitors. The technology allows delivering higher value to the end users, while preserving or even reducing the current pricing policies. For example, the company is especially skilled in constructing the cooling towers, which energy consumption is 10-12% lower than of those, offered by the competitors.
Exceptional and outstanding human resources
In addition to its technological supremacy, the company is also recognized as one of the best hubs of top-notch cooling engineers and maintenance experts. In order to hire and retain the best talents available on the market the company implements comprehensive employee-incentivizing policies. Thus, the salaries offered by the company are 15-20% higher than the market median, not to mention attractive annual and performance-based bonus payments. In addition to that, the company closely cooperates with several leading technical universities, providing internships and selecting the most promising candidates at the very onsets of their careers. As a result, employee turnover in the company is one of the lowest industry-wide.
Superior staff makes the use of recent technologies possible (Mejia, Balkin & Cardy, 2008). Their creativity and innovative mindsets substantially increase value of the company products and services.
Well-established reputation
Not only the company is strong in the technological and human resources contexts, but also it achieved exceptional reputation in the cooling community. Over its 30 years business history, the company had only several problematic projects, which were totally outshined by its successes. The number of positive reviews from the customers is very high, signaling that Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies is a reliable and experienced partner. The reputation in this industry is of critical importance, because cooling tower and tanks construction are particularly expensive projects, and securing a new client is hardly possible without having a successful business record and persuasive recommendations from the previous clients (Poluha, 2016). The Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies have all these features, dissipating all doubts and suspicions of the potential clients.
Weaknesses
In spite of the fact that the company has particularly strong positions on the market, has impeccable reputation and one the best team of engineers, several essential weaknesses make it vulnerable.
Strong dependence on the global financial stability
This weakness is inherent not only to the Atlantic Cooling Services &Technologies, but to all companies operating on this segment of the market (Therin, 2013). Construction of the cooling towers and other similar facilities are costly projects, thus, the businesses start them only when the general financial situation is favorable (JRS Scientific and Policy Reports, 2012). To illustrate, during the 2008-2010 global financial crisis the sales of the company dropped on 35-45%, showing that construction of a cooling tower or tank is not viewed as a priority project for the potential customers.
Old-fashioned marketing approaches
Although the company is exceptionally skilled in providing the most advanced technological services and products, its marketing department considerably falls behind the competitors. In particular, the company still uses traditional printed advertising mechanisms. Its presence in the internet is minimal, not to mention that social media marketing activities are almost non-existent. At the same time, the research demonstrates that over 90% of all contracting decisions are taken on the basis of preliminary basic internet search (Theris, 2013). The impression of the company’s corporate website and other elements of the media internet coverage are mediocre, which may repel those customers, who are not sufficiently informed about the company successful project history.
Old-fashioned management approaches
Another critical vulnerability of the Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies is that the company has not updated its managerial methods in accordance with the modern ‘best practice standards’. Firstly, the company still uses the obsolete hierarchical approach to corporate governance, while laissez-faire and democratic management styles have become prevalent in this, as well as in many other industries (Kotler & Keller, 2009). All decisions are still made by the senior and middle level corporate executives, despite the fact that the research shows that the ideas of employee empowerment make them more productive. The practice shows that giving limited autonomy to the employees makes them more concentrated, responsible and effective, while controlling every action is discouraging (Kiechel, 2010).
Therefore, failure to make the management practices harmonious with the today’s realities may lead to the loss of the most precious advantage – dedicated and professional human resources. The company chief engineers may understand that although the company provides exceptional compensation packages, the competitors may offer them the most effective incentive – the room for uncontrolled professional self-development and realization. As a result, the turnover rate may unexpectedly hit the bottom, depriving the company of its most valuable asset.
External Analysis
The external analysis deals with opportunities and threats, which may potentially influence the company operations. Although in contrast to the threats and weaknesses these scenarios are more probable than real, in today’s dynamic marketplace they can quickly crystallize. Therefore, the company executives should take them into due consideration in the corporate strategic planning and operations management.
Opportunities
The industry, in which the Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies operates provides numerous business growth and expansion opportunities. The most promising areas for the firm are the following:
Vertical expansion
Primarily, the company may expand its core competences, and start offering new solutions. In particular, nowadays the company provides development, manufacturing and maintenance services of the ground-deployed cooling towers and tanks. However, cooling is an important element across many industries. For example, the number of privately owned power stations is rising across the United States, as well as the NASA and its privately funded partners are actively developing space-focused projects. Cooling is an important part of any extraterrestrial facility. Thus, reinforced by the best aerospace scientific minds, the engineers of the Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies may enter one of the most promising areas of the future business. In addition to that, the company can obtain government funding for the future research projects.
Moreover, the oil companies are actively exploring the sea shelf, deploying multiple oil-drilling towers there. Cooling them, while staying compliant with the environmental legislation is one of their key priorities. The Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies may offer effective solutions to them in this regard.
Horizontal expansion
In addition to increasing the number of its practice areas, the company may also attempt entering other geographical areas. To be more specific, many energy plants and other buildings are being constructed in the developing countries of South Eastern Africa, Asia and Latin America. The local providers of cooling services do not have sufficient expertise to serve their needs, and these market niches are mainly occupied by the European companies (U.S. Department of Energy, 2008). However, their pricing policies may be unaffordable to the local business projects, while the United States investors may find their quality standards below their reasonable expectations. The research also demonstrates that the number of such projects in the developing regions will keep increasing in the future. Thus, the Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies may find promising markets there, becoming one of the first US-based provider of such services in the remotest regions of the planet. It is highly possible that the US-based investor will prefer dealing with the Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies due to the positive reputation of the firm, which has been already established in the United States.
Consulting practice
The research demonstrates that also moderately, the number of cooling companies in the United States of America is increasing. It poses a potential threat on the company operations (discussed further), but the company may turn this downside into the advantage. In particular, the companies, which have just emerged on this business landscape, have no relevant practical experience. Although hiring professional and qualified staff is possible, from the business point of view the executives of such companies are likely to be totally unaware about the existing ‘hidden stones’. By establishing a consulting practice, the Atlantic Cooling Services and Technologies can increase its revenues, while minimizing the negative impact of the new market entrants.
Threats
The new market entrants
In spite of the fact that this industry is a highly specialized one, the new companies attempt entering the market every year. Thus, the dominance and the market share of the Atlantic Cooling Services & Technologies may be jeopardized in the event one of these companies acquires the necessary resources to compete with it.
The substitute products
As it has been discussed before, the growth and development of technology plays an increasingly important role in this area of business. However, while the company is capable of harnessing the newest cooling solutions, it is outside of the company’s control if anyone discovers an absolute substitute to the existing approach to cooling and the cooling towers or tanks will be no longer required.
Market instability
The weaknesses section showed that the company is highly vulnerable to the vacillations of the global financial markets. Nowadays, not a single analyst is capable of predicting whether the 2008-2010 recession was the last one (Poluha, 2016). The commentators agree on the idea that any new wave of a financial crisis is stronger than the previous one. Therefore, if the new crisis erupts in the future, the company can collapse irrespective of its reputation and financial resources.
Conclusions
Bibliography
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Kiechel, W. (2010). The lords of strategy : the secret intellectual history of the new corporate world. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press.
Kotler, P. & Keller, K. (2009). A framework for marketing management. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Mejia, L., Balkin, D. & Cardy, R. (2008). Management : people, performance, change. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin
Poluha, R. (2016). The Quintessence of Supply Chain Management : What You Really Need to Know to Manage Your Processes in Procurement, Manufacturing, Warehousing and Logistics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg Imprint Springer.
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