Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights
This series of six cases (labeled A through F) presents the various dilemmas that arose in the spring of 2001 when engineers at the Seattle-based Boeing Company, unhappy with management decisions, contemplated and undertook a strike, the first "white-collar" work stoppage in the history of American business.
Authors :: Pat Werhane, Michael Gorman, Jenny Mead, Mary L Cummings
Swot Analysis of "Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights" written by Pat Werhane, Michael Gorman, Jenny Mead, Mary L Cummings includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Boeing Nerds facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Labor and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Boeing Nerds, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Boeing Nerds operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Boeing Nerds
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Boeing Nerds
Strengths Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Boeing Nerds in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Boeing Nerds digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Boeing Nerds has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Strong track record of project management
– Boeing Nerds is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Boeing Nerds is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Boeing Nerds is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Boeing Nerds has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High brand equity
– Boeing Nerds has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Boeing Nerds to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Boeing Nerds in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Boeing Nerds has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Boeing Nerds has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Boeing Nerds is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Boeing Nerds is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Boeing Nerds to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Boeing Nerds to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights, it seems that the employees of Boeing Nerds don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Boeing Nerds 's lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Boeing Nerds has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights, is just above the industry average. Boeing Nerds needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Boeing Nerds has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Boeing Nerds even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Boeing Nerds needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Boeing Nerds is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Boeing Nerds has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Boeing Nerds, firm in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Boeing Nerds has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Opportunities Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Boeing Nerds can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Boeing Nerds can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Boeing Nerds can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Boeing Nerds can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Boeing Nerds to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Boeing Nerds to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Boeing Nerds can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Boeing Nerds to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Boeing Nerds can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Loyalty marketing
– Boeing Nerds has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Boeing Nerds has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Boeing Nerds to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Boeing Nerds can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Boeing Nerds to increase its market reach. Boeing Nerds will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Boeing Nerds can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Boeing Nerds operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights are -
Increasing wage structure of Boeing Nerds
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Boeing Nerds.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Boeing Nerds can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Boeing Nerds in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Boeing Nerds business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Boeing Nerds can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights, Boeing Nerds may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Boeing Nerds can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Boeing Nerds demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Boeing Nerds will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Boeing Nerds is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Boeing Nerds with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Boeing Nerds in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Boeing: No Nerds, No Birds (D): Employee Rights is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Boeing Nerds needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.