Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A)
In July 2007, Wachovia Corporation's CEO is pleased with a report that shows the firm's record-setting second quarter results. In the past three months, Wachovia has doubled its earnings and posted record revenues, mostly attributable to the large consumer real-estate loans related to the Golden West Financial acquisition that has contributed to the bank's growth. The transition of Golden West into Wachovia's platform had been quick and smooth, despite their cultural, geographic, and product-offering differences. The CEO was excited that the acquisition provided new opportunities for lending in what were perceived as less risky markets, particularly single-family home mortgages with adjustable rates. But he wondered if there were any adjustments necessary to extract ultimate value from Golden West.
Authors :: L.J. Bourgeois, Dave Maher, Matt Jackson, Adam Schwarzschild
Swot Analysis of "Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A)" written by L.J. Bourgeois, Dave Maher, Matt Jackson, Adam Schwarzschild includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Golden Wachovia facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial markets, Growth strategy, Mergers & acquisitions and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) 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, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Golden Wachovia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Golden Wachovia 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Golden Wachovia
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 Golden Wachovia
Strengths Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Golden Wachovia in Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Golden Wachovia 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Golden Wachovia 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Golden Wachovia is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Golden Wachovia to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Golden Wachovia to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Golden Wachovia 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Golden Wachovia
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Golden Wachovia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Golden Wachovia 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 L.J. Bourgeois, Dave Maher, Matt Jackson, Adam Schwarzschild 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Golden Wachovia is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Golden Wachovia in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Golden Wachovia 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 Golden Wachovia in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Golden Wachovia 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.
Weaknesses Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Golden Wachovia 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 - Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, L.J. Bourgeois, Dave Maher, Matt Jackson, Adam Schwarzschild suggests that, Golden Wachovia 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Golden Wachovia 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Golden Wachovia is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Golden Wachovia needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Golden Wachovia to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A), it seems that the employees of Golden Wachovia 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) HBR case study mentions - Golden Wachovia 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A), in the dynamic environment Golden Wachovia has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Golden Wachovia has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A), is just above the industry average. Golden Wachovia 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Golden Wachovia 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Golden Wachovia 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Golden Wachovia, firm in the HBR case study Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) | 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Golden Wachovia to increase its market reach. Golden Wachovia 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Golden Wachovia 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Golden Wachovia 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Golden Wachovia 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. Golden Wachovia can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Golden Wachovia 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. Golden Wachovia 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.
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 Golden Wachovia in the consumer business. Now Golden Wachovia can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Golden Wachovia can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Golden Wachovia 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Golden Wachovia 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Golden Wachovia 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 Golden Wachovia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Golden Wachovia 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.
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 Golden Wachovia 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Golden Wachovia 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.
Threats Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Golden Wachovia 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) .
Regulatory challenges
– Golden Wachovia 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Golden Wachovia 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 Golden Wachovia in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Golden Wachovia has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Golden Wachovia 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A), Golden Wachovia may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Golden Wachovia with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Golden Wachovia 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Golden Wachovia is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Golden Wachovia 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.
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. Golden Wachovia needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Golden Wachovia.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) 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 Integration of Wachovia and Golden West (A) 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 Golden Wachovia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
