Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations
The case describes the actions taken by Dennis Hightower as president of Disney Consumer Products in Europe and the Middle East from 1988 to 1994. It focuses on how he has gone about establishing a regional office and knitting local operations closer together, the benefits that the process has generated, but also the tensions it has created within the organization. It ends with Hightower contemplating whether he should be changing directions, given the emerging strategic and organizational challenges.
Swot Analysis of "Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations" written by Ashish Nanda includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Hightower Dennis facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate governance, Influence, Intellectual property, International business, Organizational structure, Reorganization and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hightower Dennis, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hightower Dennis 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hightower Dennis
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 Hightower Dennis
Strengths Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hightower Dennis in Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hightower Dennis in the sector have low bargaining power. Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hightower Dennis to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hightower Dennis is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Hightower Dennis 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 Hightower Dennis in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hightower Dennis 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hightower Dennis 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hightower Dennis is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hightower Dennis to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hightower Dennis to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Hightower Dennis has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hightower Dennis to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Hightower Dennis 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
– Hightower Dennis is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Hightower Dennis 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 Ashish Nanda 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.
Training and development
– Hightower Dennis has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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.
Weaknesses Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hightower Dennis 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Hightower Dennis 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Hightower Dennis 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. Hightower Dennis 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hightower Dennis 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Hightower Dennis 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ashish Nanda suggests that, Hightower Dennis 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hightower Dennis, firm in the HBR case study Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hightower Dennis 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 - Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations, in the dynamic environment Hightower Dennis has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hightower Dennis 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations HBR case study mentions - Hightower Dennis 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.
Opportunities Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations | 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations are -
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. Hightower Dennis 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. Hightower Dennis 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Hightower Dennis is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hightower Dennis has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Hightower Dennis to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations case study. Hightower Dennis 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, Hightower Dennis can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hightower Dennis operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hightower Dennis 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hightower Dennis can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Hightower Dennis can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hightower Dennis in the consumer business. Now Hightower Dennis can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Hightower Dennis 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hightower Dennis 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hightower Dennis to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hightower Dennis 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.
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 Hightower Dennis 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hightower Dennis 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 Hightower Dennis to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hightower Dennis 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hightower Dennis has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hightower Dennis 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.
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.
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.
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. Hightower Dennis 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 Hightower Dennis is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Hightower Dennis 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. Hightower Dennis can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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 Hightower Dennis.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hightower Dennis can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Regulatory challenges
– Hightower Dennis 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 Hightower Dennis 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hightower Dennis 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations .
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 Hightower Dennis business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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 Walt Disney's Dennis Hightower: Weaving Together the European Operations 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 Hightower Dennis needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
