Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide
This note outlines how leading professional service firms operating in China revise their standard hiring practices to fit local challenges and customs. Based on interviews with professionals in a number of established accounting, strategy consulting, and executive search firms presently operating in China, it explores best practices they use to hire exceptional professionals who will succeed in building high quality client relationships, delivering appropriately innovative thinking, and helping their firms grow and improve performance - all within China's unique political and cultural context.
Swot Analysis of "Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide" written by Heidi K. Gardner includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Professionals Hiring facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Hiring, Human resource management, Operations management and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Professionals Hiring, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Professionals Hiring 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Professionals Hiring
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 Professionals Hiring
Strengths Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Professionals Hiring in Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Professionals Hiring 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 Heidi K. Gardner 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.
Organizational Resilience of Professionals Hiring
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Professionals Hiring does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Professionals Hiring is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Professionals Hiring is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Professionals Hiring to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Professionals Hiring to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Professionals Hiring 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.
High brand equity
– Professionals Hiring has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Professionals Hiring to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Professionals Hiring digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Professionals Hiring has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Professionals Hiring 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Professionals Hiring 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 Professionals Hiring in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Professionals Hiring is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Professionals Hiring in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide are -
Need for greater diversity
– Professionals Hiring 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Professionals Hiring products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Professionals Hiring needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Professionals Hiring is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Professionals Hiring needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Professionals Hiring to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Professionals Hiring 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. Professionals Hiring 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide 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 Professionals Hiring 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Professionals Hiring is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Professionals Hiring 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Professionals Hiring has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide, 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Professionals Hiring 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide 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 Professionals Hiring has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide | 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Professionals Hiring 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Professionals Hiring to increase its market reach. Professionals Hiring 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Professionals Hiring 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.
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 Professionals Hiring in the consumer business. Now Professionals Hiring can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Professionals Hiring 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Professionals Hiring has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Professionals Hiring to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide case study. Professionals Hiring can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Professionals Hiring 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Professionals Hiring 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Professionals Hiring 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Professionals Hiring 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 Professionals Hiring to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Professionals Hiring 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, Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Professionals Hiring can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Professionals Hiring operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Professionals Hiring 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Professionals Hiring to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide are -
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 Professionals Hiring in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Professionals Hiring 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.
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. Professionals Hiring needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Professionals Hiring 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Professionals Hiring 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.
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 Professionals Hiring.
Regulatory challenges
– Professionals Hiring 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Professionals Hiring is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Professionals Hiring 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. Professionals Hiring can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide, Professionals Hiring 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 Professionals Hiring with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Professionals Hiring can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide 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 Hiring Professionals in China: A Practitioner's Guide 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 Professionals Hiring needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
