Case Study Description of Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals
The best hiring practices help professional firms attract successful employees, equip newcomers with critical support networks, increase the firm's diversity and enhance its reputation. This Note delineates how leading firms manage these multiple objectives throughout the entire process of forecasting, sourcing and onboarding top talent. It also expands on potential misalignments that can arise and tradeoffs firms face in building and executing an integrated hiring strategy.
Swot Analysis of "Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals" written by Heidi K. Gardner includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Hiring Firms facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Diversity, Hiring, Marketing, Networking, Public relations, Talent management and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hiring Firms, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hiring Firms 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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hiring Firms
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 Hiring Firms
Strengths Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hiring Firms in Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hiring Firms to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hiring Firms to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Hiring Firms 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 Hiring Firms 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 Hiring Firms 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hiring Firms is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Hiring Firms digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hiring Firms 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.
Organizational Resilience of Hiring Firms
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Hiring Firms does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hiring Firms in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Hiring Firms 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 Hiring Firms is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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.
Analytics focus
– Hiring Firms 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hiring Firms 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 Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Hiring Firms is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Hiring Firms 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals, it seems that the employees of Hiring Firms 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hiring Firms is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Hiring Firms needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hiring Firms to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Heidi K. Gardner suggests that, Hiring Firms 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hiring Firms 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Hiring Firms supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hiring Firms vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hiring Firms, firm in the HBR case study Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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 Hiring Firms 's lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals HBR case study mentions - Hiring Firms 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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 Hiring Firms has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hiring Firms 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 - Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals | 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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hiring Firms 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. Hiring Firms can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hiring Firms 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.
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 Hiring Firms to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Loyalty marketing
– Hiring Firms 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Hiring Firms 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hiring Firms can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hiring Firms operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hiring Firms 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hiring Firms 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hiring Firms has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Hiring Firms to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals case study. Hiring Firms can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Hiring Firms can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hiring Firms 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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hiring Firms to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hiring Firms to increase its market reach. Hiring Firms 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.
Threats Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hiring Firms 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 Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals .
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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals, Hiring Firms 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 .
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 Hiring Firms 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hiring Firms 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.
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 Hiring Firms in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Hiring Firms business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Hiring Firms 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.
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. Hiring Firms can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Hiring Firms.
Regulatory challenges
– Hiring Firms 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Hiring Firms with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hiring Firms is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hiring Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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 Successful Professionals: One Process-Multiple Goals 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 Hiring Firms needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.