Case Study Description of Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters
The owner of Mundell & Associates is making plans to embark on a significant remake of the company culture. To that end, he is considering specific, concrete changes in company policies and practices in order to more fully embed his faith convictions and spiritual values in the culture of the company and the consciousness of employees. Those values have always been present and active in shaping the business; the company is one of the largest companies participating in the Economy of Communion (EOC) project, a worldwide, faith-based, effort to humanize economic activity through use of thoughtful business practices and profit redistribution. The owner is convinced that being an EOC company requires more than sharing profits or following particular practices. It means being an actual community, one marked by the involvement and engagement of all employees. The way forward is not at all clear and so the owner, and students, must consider several possible options, weigh the advantages and disadvantages of different organizational behavior approaches, and devise a concrete course of action.
Authors :: Jeanne G Buckeye, John B Gallagher, Elizabeth Garlow
Swot Analysis of "Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters" written by Jeanne G Buckeye, John B Gallagher, Elizabeth Garlow includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Eoc Faith facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Human resource management, Leadership and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eoc Faith, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eoc Faith 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eoc Faith
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 Eoc Faith
Strengths Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eoc Faith in Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Eoc Faith 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 Eoc Faith in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Eoc Faith is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Eoc Faith has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eoc Faith to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eoc Faith is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eoc Faith is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eoc Faith are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Training and development
– Eoc Faith has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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.
Learning organization
- Eoc Faith 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 Eoc Faith is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eoc Faith in the sector have low bargaining power. Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eoc Faith to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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
– Eoc Faith 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eoc Faith in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters, it seems that the employees of Eoc Faith 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Eoc Faith 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eoc Faith is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Eoc Faith needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eoc Faith to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters, in the dynamic environment Eoc Faith has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eoc Faith has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Eoc Faith 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. Eoc Faith 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eoc Faith is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eoc Faith 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eoc Faith 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 - Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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 Eoc Faith has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters, is just above the industry average. Eoc Faith 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Eoc Faith supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eoc Faith vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters | 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters are -
Loyalty marketing
– Eoc Faith 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 Eoc Faith 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 Eoc Faith to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eoc Faith can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Eoc Faith can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eoc Faith 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Eoc Faith can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eoc Faith in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eoc Faith 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eoc Faith 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 Eoc Faith 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eoc Faith 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eoc Faith can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eoc Faith operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eoc Faith has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Eoc Faith to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters case study. Eoc Faith can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eoc Faith 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, Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eoc Faith 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters are -
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 Eoc Faith business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eoc Faith 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.
Increasing wage structure of Eoc Faith
– 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 Eoc Faith.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eoc Faith has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eoc Faith 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eoc Faith 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eoc Faith 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.
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. Eoc Faith can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eoc Faith is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eoc Faith 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters .
Environmental challenges
– Eoc Faith 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. Eoc Faith can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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. Eoc Faith 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eoc Faith 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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 Mundell & Associates, Inc.; Managing When Faith Really Matters 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 Eoc Faith needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.