Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong
A second-generation, multi-billion-dollar Asian family business, run for decades by six brothers, faces issues of ownership, family employment, management, leadership, governance, and succession as it transitions to the third generation of siblings and cousins.
Authors :: John Ward, Suren Mansinghka, Elyssa Tran, Bhaskar Sambamurthy
Swot Analysis of "Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong" written by John Ward, Suren Mansinghka, Elyssa Tran, Bhaskar Sambamurthy includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Family Harilela facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Growth strategy, Succession planning and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Family Harilela, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Family Harilela 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Family Harilela
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 Family Harilela
Strengths Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Family Harilela in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Family Harilela is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Family Harilela is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Family Harilela is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Family Harilela 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Family Harilela has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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
- Family Harilela 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 Family Harilela is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Family Harilela to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Family Harilela to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Family Harilela 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Family Harilela is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Family Harilela 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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.
Organizational Resilience of Family Harilela
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Family Harilela does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Family Harilela 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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 Family Harilela has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong, in the dynamic environment Family Harilela has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Family Harilela has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Family Harilela is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Family Harilela needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Family Harilela to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Family Harilela is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong, it seems that the employees of Family Harilela 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Family Harilela 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong, is just above the industry average. Family Harilela 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Family Harilela is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Family Harilela products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Family Harilela needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong | 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Family Harilela 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Family Harilela to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Family Harilela 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 Family Harilela 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Family Harilela can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Family Harilela to increase its market reach. Family Harilela 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.
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 Family Harilela in the consumer business. Now Family Harilela can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Family Harilela can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Family Harilela has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Family Harilela to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong case study. Family Harilela can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Family Harilela can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Family Harilela operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
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 Family Harilela 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Family Harilela 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.
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. Family Harilela can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Family Harilela 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.
Threats Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong are -
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. Family Harilela needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Family Harilela 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Family Harilela is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Family Harilela 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Family Harilela 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.
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 Family Harilela in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Family Harilela 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.
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. Family Harilela can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Family Harilela 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Family Harilela 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.
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 Family Harilela.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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 Harilela Enterprises: An Indian Family Business in Hong Kong 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 Family Harilela needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
