Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B)
"This is a case series featuring an A, B and C case. Robert Harvey, a business professor at a small university in Iowa, arranged for Hopwood Manufacturing Company to come to the campus to interview his students for internship and management-in-training positions, only to learn that the recruiters, Dave Maggert and Wendy Blair, appeared to be more interested in the appearances of the candidates than their qualifications. Harvey must now decide what action to take in response to the recruiters' discriminatory statements."
Swot Analysis of "Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B)" written by Timothy Ogden includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Hopwood Recruiters facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Diversity, Labor, Leadership, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hopwood Recruiters, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hopwood Recruiters 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hopwood Recruiters
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 Hopwood Recruiters
Strengths Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hopwood Recruiters in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Hopwood Recruiters has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hopwood Recruiters to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Hopwood Recruiters is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hopwood Recruiters in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hopwood Recruiters 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hopwood Recruiters is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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
– Hopwood Recruiters is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Hopwood Recruiters is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hopwood Recruiters to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hopwood Recruiters to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Hopwood Recruiters has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hopwood Recruiters has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hopwood Recruiters has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) HBR case study mentions - Hopwood Recruiters takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hopwood Recruiters products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hopwood Recruiters needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hopwood Recruiters has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Need for greater diversity
– Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hopwood Recruiters is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Hopwood Recruiters 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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 Hopwood Recruiters 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Hopwood Recruiters has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B), it seems that the employees of Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hopwood Recruiters is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Hopwood Recruiters needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hopwood Recruiters to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Timothy Ogden suggests that, Hopwood Recruiters is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Opportunities Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) | 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) are -
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. Hopwood Recruiters can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Hopwood Recruiters can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hopwood Recruiters 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, Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hopwood Recruiters in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hopwood Recruiters has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Hopwood Recruiters to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) case study. Hopwood Recruiters can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Hopwood Recruiters can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hopwood Recruiters can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hopwood Recruiters 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hopwood Recruiters to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Hopwood Recruiters to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hopwood Recruiters can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hopwood Recruiters operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Hopwood Recruiters with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Hopwood Recruiters
– 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 Hopwood Recruiters.
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 Hopwood Recruiters business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hopwood Recruiters high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
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 Hopwood Recruiters in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Hopwood Recruiters can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Hopwood Recruiters.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hopwood Recruiters is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Hopwood Recruiters needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hopwood Recruiters has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hopwood Recruiters needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (B) 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 Hopwood Recruiters needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.