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SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis
Stark Industries
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Draft for client comments
Prepared by: Innovirex Consulting Partnership
Commissioned by: V Potts, Stark Industries
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[PP] Oh, you'd better believe there are going to be some client comments. You have clearly ignored several parts of my instructions. Innovirex came highly recommended, so I was expecting a significantly higher standard of work than this. I look forward to receiving a significantly revised draft as soon as possible. 09:30pm
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Executive summary follows. See supplementary documents for further details:
- Tech_sector_overview.doc
- Arms_sector_overview.doc
- Stark_stock_performance_Q4_2010.xls
- Search_Analytics_Q4_2010.xls
- Iron_Man_Rogues_Gallery.doc
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[PP] Iron_Man_Rogues_Gallery.doc - as far as I can tell, this is unattributed cut and paste from an Internet fansite, and it definitely contains several inaccuracies. (I am pretty sure there's no such person as "The Melter", for example.) Please either delete it entirely or replace it with some decent original research. 09:55pm
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Strengths:
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Tony Stark, Genius Inventor
Stark Industries is indeed fortunate to have an individual widely - and accurately - described as a "genius inventor" on its payroll, although it is unusual for such an individual to also be the CEO (see also: corporate structure under "Weaknesses", below)
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Other personnel
Stark Industries retains a large number of talented individuals. In many cases, they reamin committed to their projects out of a sense of personal loyalty to Mr Stark and/or the ethos of the company, despite the potential for even higher earnings elsewhere.
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[PP] You can say that again. 09:58pm
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Patents
The company holds a large number of active patents; while the original Arc Reactor designed by Mr Stark Sr has long since passed out of its patent term, the miniaturised version represents an extremely valuable piece of intellectual property.
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Free publicity
Mr Stark's various activities are a subject of keen interest to media outletrs focused on: finance, technology, celebrity gossip, the evolving "superhero" phenomenon, and a variety of other niche focuses.
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[PP] I think we can remove the reference to "niche focuses". Either it's what I'm thinking of, or it's something else that I definitely don't want to know about. 10:01pm
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Weaknesses:
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Tony Stark, Billionaire playboy
The more extravagant aspects of Mr Stark's lifestyle present significant risk to Stark Industries's core activities, with no corresponding upsides. While a certain amount of socialising is an expected part of his role, he seems to take this to unnecessary extremes, to say the least.
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[PP] This section is not relevant, remove. 10:11pm
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Negative publicity
While public opinion remains broadly favourable to Mr Stark on balance, a significant and growing minority have a more skeptical attitude, especially since his admission that he is the "superhero" Iron Man. (See supporting search analytics documents and cross-correlate with stock price.) If desired, Innovirex could initiate polling to see if there are particular narratives that would make the public more or less sympathetic to Mr Stark.
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[PP] You are definitely not to conduct any polling. The chances of someone contacted leaking the questions they were asked is far too high. 10:12pm
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Organisational structure
While it is relatively common in startups for the personnel developing new intellectual property to also have leadership roles, it is distinctly unusual in a more mature company such as Stark Industries with a multi-decade history. This leads to significant problems with the structure of the business. In the past year, the following Stark Industries subdivisions have been initiated, often following Mr Stark becoming "inspired":
- Stark Airponics
- Stark Interactive
- Stark Optronics
- Stark Quantum
- Stark Rediffusion
- Stark Solarmax
A consolidation of some of these, currently largely autonomous, subdivisions into a clearer hierarchy with a better reporting structure would be advisable. The longer this remains unaddressed, the greater the potential for the people leading these parts of the business - often recruited by Mr Stark on spec - to develop their own personal fiefdoms.
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[PP] The comments here about the structure of the company are considerably more on point. Perhaps instead of investigating how many people search for idle gossip, you could have been working up some possible options for the suggested restructuring. 10:16pm
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Opportunities:
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Tony Stark, Arms Dealer
While Mr Stark has a versatile mind and continues to come up with a large number of innovative technologies, he does possess a particular talent for and significant expertise in the area of weapons, munitions, semi-autonomous military drone systems, and the like. Were Mr Stark to return to this field of endeavour, a large number of lucrative government contracts that were previously unilaterally termintaed would undoubtedly be able to begin again, bringing in a significant - and stable - revenue stream for the company.
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[TS] No, no, no, no, no! No more weapons. 10:42pm
[PP] Tony?! How are you in this document? 10:43pm
[TS] You seriously didn't think I could break your encryption? 10:45pm
[PP] And also, before you get really mad, I was about to type pretty much the exact same thing. 10:45pm
[TS] When did you commission this thing anyway, Pepper? How? 10:47pm
[PP] You gave me a fairly large discretionary budget, remember? 10:48pm
[TS] That's for, I don't know, making sure there's always fresh fruit on your desk, or whatever. 10:50pm
[PP] Tony, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. 10:51pm
[TS] You don't get those oranges flown across in a private jet every day from some small family-owned orchard in Spain? 10:52pm
[PP] Attn Innovirex - see comments above; this section needs to be entirely rewritten. Stark Industries's position on this is crystal clear, and will not be changing. Please be more innovative in thinking about possible future opportunities. 10:55pm
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Other patents
As noted, the patent on the miniaturised arc reactor in particular is an extremely valuable piece of intellectual property. At present it is significantly underutilised. While there are technical difficulties in reproducing the technology, these are not insurmountable and the technology could be licensed to users around the world. This would also have knock on effects on the organisation's corporate social responsibility agenda, given that the reactor is a source of "clean" energy.
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[PP] Also, Attn IT dept - please advise on how can I ensure that in future Mr Stark does not gain access to documents that he was never intended to see. 10:57pm
[TS] Not gonna happen, Pepper ... 10:58pm
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Threats:
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Tony Stark, Iron Man
Mr Stark's extra-mural activities as a "superhero" have attracted the attention of a number of individuals who some have classed as "supervillains". The "Iron Monger" case in particular is well documented, but a number of others have become active, or at least more widely known to be active, in recent times. It has been argued that this growing trend is an inevitable reaction to the emergence of individuals such as Mr Stark, the supposed Norse god "Thor", and more ambiguous entities such as "the Hulk". Despite initially appearing to respond to requests for assistance with this research, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division have not provided any useable data about how widespread the metahuman phenomenon is or the threats they evaluate.
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[TS] Well, I guess it's nice to know I tick all the boxes. 11:01pm
[TS] Though I don't think it's fair for them to blame bad guys on me. 11:02pm
[TS] I think it's cute they asked S.H.I.E.L.D. Do you think Fury sent Coulson round to bore them into submission? 11:03pm
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Disgruntled former employees
While Mr Stark does inspire loyalty from some, others have become frustrated with his leadership and left the company under difficult circumstances. This includes a very large number of those previously involved in weapons design and manufacture. It is not impossible that such former employees may choose to develop the designs they were working on further, and either provide them to "supervillains" (see above) or become such themselves.
There also remains the risk of straightforward lawsuits from those terminated without their contractual arrangements being followed, though all such claims so far have been settled relatively amicably out of court.
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[PP] Tony, please remember: you weren't supposed to see this document. Certainly not in this form. 11:05pm
[TS] Pepper, it's fine; this is just ... due diligence, I guess. I probably should have commissioned something like this myself a long time ago. 11:06pm
[PP] Really? 11:07pm
[TS] Though I probably wouldn't have done it from a hack outfit like Innovirex. 11:07pm
[TS] Oh, I'm still mad, don't get me wrong. 11:08pm
[PP] You're plotting some elaborate revenge already, I can tell. 11:09pm
[TS] Of course I am. 11:10pm
[TS] Who knows, I might even make you CEO, see how you like it. 11:12pm
[TS] You could sign things just "PP", not "PP pp Tony Stark"! 11:13pm
[PP] ... I really can't tell if you're joking or not. 11:14pm
[PP] Tony? 11:16pm
[PP] Tony, are you still there? 11:20pm
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