Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch
In the spring of 2005, Candace Browning, head of Global Securities Research and Economics at Merrill Lynch, led about 500 Merrill Lynch analysts worldwide in a collaborative effort to produce innovative research, most of them accustomed to working independently in their own regions and areas of expertise. Less than five years earlier, research analysts had expressed little or no interest in group efforts. By 2005, many analysts who had been assigned to work on collaborative projects indicated increased learning and a willingness to work in teams again. Some analysts themselves chose to work together. Whereas Merrill had come a long way, some analysts remained skeptical. Managers also questioned whether all types of collaboration were worth the significant efforts required. Browning had to consider the issues involved, the feedback received, and the industry itself and devise a strategy moving forward.
Swot Analysis of "Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch" written by Boris Groysberg, Ingrid Vargas includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Merrill Analysts facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Decision making, Human resource management, Innovation, Leadership, Leading teams, Managing uncertainty, Motivating people, Negotiations and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Merrill Analysts, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Merrill Analysts 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Merrill Analysts
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 Merrill Analysts
Strengths Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Merrill Analysts in Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Merrill Analysts 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 Merrill Analysts in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Merrill Analysts has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Merrill Analysts to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Merrill Analysts is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Merrill Analysts is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Merrill Analysts
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Merrill Analysts does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Merrill Analysts 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 Merrill Analysts is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Merrill Analysts in the sector have low bargaining power. Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Merrill Analysts to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Merrill Analysts 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Merrill Analysts has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Merrill Analysts 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Merrill Analysts digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Merrill Analysts 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.
Analytics focus
– Merrill Analysts 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 Boris Groysberg, Ingrid Vargas 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Merrill Analysts 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch, in the dynamic environment Merrill Analysts has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Merrill Analysts has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Merrill Analysts 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Merrill Analysts is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Merrill Analysts is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Merrill Analysts needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Merrill Analysts to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Merrill Analysts 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Merrill Analysts is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Merrill Analysts 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Merrill Analysts 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Merrill Analysts 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. Merrill Analysts 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.
Opportunities Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch | 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Merrill Analysts 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Merrill Analysts 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Merrill Analysts can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Merrill Analysts to increase its market reach. Merrill Analysts 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.
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. Merrill Analysts 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 Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Merrill Analysts can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Merrill Analysts 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
– Merrill Analysts 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 Merrill Analysts 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 Merrill Analysts to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Merrill Analysts in the consumer business. Now Merrill Analysts can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Merrill Analysts 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, Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Merrill Analysts can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Merrill Analysts is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Merrill Analysts 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Merrill Analysts 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Merrill Analysts 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch .
Regulatory challenges
– Merrill Analysts 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Merrill Analysts has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Merrill Analysts 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.
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 Merrill Analysts.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Merrill Analysts needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Merrill Analysts in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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 Merrill Analysts business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Merrill Analysts 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.
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.
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. Merrill Analysts can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Innovation and Collaboration at Merrill Lynch 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 Merrill Analysts needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
