Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession
Since its founding in 1908, Harvard Business School's mission has been to perform a much-needed service for American society by turning business management into a profession. One of the most important factors in the founding of HBS and the nation's other new business schools was the demand for managers created by the rise of the modern business corporation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Additionally, in the years just after the turn of the century business careers were becoming increasingly attractive to young men who would have previously entered one of the older, more traditional professions: law, medicine, education, and the ministry. The process of formulating "business principles" that would put the study of management on a scientific basis was a crucial part of what the founders had set out to achieve in creating the HBS curriculum and building a faculty. By discovering business principles, HBS would also help lay the foundation of the new profession of business. The HBS founders also believed there was another dimension to professionalism in business--one that involved not just the expertise that students acquired but also the attitudes they held and their contribution to society.
Authors :: Rakesh Khurana, Tarun Khanna, Daniel Penrice
Swot Analysis of "Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession" written by Rakesh Khurana, Tarun Khanna, Daniel Penrice includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Profession Hbs facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Managing people, Social enterprise and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Profession Hbs, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Profession Hbs 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Profession Hbs
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Profession Hbs
Strengths Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Profession Hbs in Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Profession Hbs 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Profession Hbs 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 Profession Hbs is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Profession Hbs 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Profession Hbs is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Profession Hbs in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Profession Hbs 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Profession Hbs is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Profession Hbs is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Profession Hbs is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Profession Hbs in the sector have low bargaining power. Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Profession Hbs to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Profession Hbs in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Profession Hbs is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Rakesh Khurana, Tarun Khanna, Daniel Penrice can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Weaknesses Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Profession Hbs is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Profession Hbs 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Profession Hbs has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession, it seems that the employees of Profession Hbs 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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 Profession Hbs 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Rakesh Khurana, Tarun Khanna, Daniel Penrice suggests that, Profession Hbs 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession HBR case study mentions - Profession Hbs 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Organizational Development 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Profession Hbs, firm in the HBR case study Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Profession Hbs 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Profession Hbs has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession | 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Profession Hbs 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Profession Hbs to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Profession Hbs can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Profession Hbs can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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.
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. Profession Hbs can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Profession Hbs in the consumer business. Now Profession Hbs can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Profession Hbs 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Profession Hbs 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, Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Profession Hbs can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Profession Hbs 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 Organizational Development segment.
Loyalty marketing
– Profession Hbs 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Profession Hbs 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 Profession Hbs to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Profession Hbs 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Profession Hbs 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.
Threats Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Organizational Development field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Profession Hbs 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 Profession Hbs.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Profession Hbs with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Profession Hbs 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Profession Hbs in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development 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.
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 Profession Hbs in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Profession Hbs 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Profession Hbs 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 Organizational Development industry regulations.
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 Profession Hbs business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Profession Hbs needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Profession Hbs can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Increasing wage structure of Profession Hbs
– 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 Profession Hbs.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Profession Hbs has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Profession Hbs needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Profession Hbs 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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 Harvard Business School and the Making of a New Profession 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 Profession Hbs needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.