Case Study Description of Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling
Describes a strategic human resource management process applied at the business unit and corporate level. The purpose of the process is to provide a means for aligning human resource management policies and practices with strategy and to hold managers accountable for managing change and improvement.
Swot Analysis of "Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling" written by Michael Beer, Alistair D. Williamson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Resource Human facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy, Health, Human resource management, Strategic planning and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Resource Human, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Resource Human 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Resource Human
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 Resource Human
Strengths Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Resource Human in Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Resource Human 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 Resource Human is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Resource Human has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Resource Human 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.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Resource Human 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 Resource Human in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Resource Human 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Resource Human 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Resource Human to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Resource Human to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Resource Human 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 Michael Beer, Alistair D. Williamson 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Resource Human in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 brand equity
– Resource Human has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Resource Human to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Resource Human 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 Resource Human 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Resource Human 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. Resource Human 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Resource Human 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling, in the dynamic environment Resource Human has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Resource Human has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Resource Human is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Resource Human products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Resource Human needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Resource Human 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Resource Human is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling, is just above the industry average. Resource Human 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Resource Human is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Resource Human needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Resource Human to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael Beer, Alistair D. Williamson suggests that, Resource Human 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.
Opportunities Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling | 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Resource Human 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.
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. Resource Human can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Resource Human in the consumer business. Now Resource Human can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Resource Human 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Resource Human to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Resource Human 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
– Resource Human can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Resource Human is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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.
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. Resource Human 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. Resource Human 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Resource Human 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 Resource Human to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Resource Human 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Resource Human 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, Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Resource Human has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Resource Human to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling case study. Resource Human can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Resource Human 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.
Threats Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling are -
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. Resource Human can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Resource Human 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.
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 Resource Human business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Resource Human.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Resource Human 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Resource Human 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling .
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 Resource Human in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Resource Human needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Resource Human is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Resource Human
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Resource Human.
Environmental challenges
– Resource Human 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. Resource Human can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 Becton Dickinson (D): Strategic Human Resource Management Profiling 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 Resource Human needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
