Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office
Over the past several years both the share of women receiving accounting degrees and the share of women entering public accounting have risen substantially. However, the number of women holding senior positions, such as partner, remains low. This case provides data on retention of females in a large metropolitan office of a public accounting firm, asks whether the lower retention rate (relative to male associates) is a business problem for the firm, and if so, asks what the managing partner should do about it.
Swot Analysis of "Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office" written by Gary W. Loveman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Women Accounting facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Employee retention, Gender, Personnel policies and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Women Accounting, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Women Accounting 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Women Accounting
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 Women Accounting
Strengths Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Women Accounting in Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Women Accounting has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Women Accounting digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Women Accounting 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Women Accounting is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Women Accounting is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Women Accounting
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Women Accounting does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Women Accounting 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Women Accounting is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Women Accounting 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Women Accounting 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 Women Accounting is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Women Accounting in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Women Accounting has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Women Accounting to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Women Accounting 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Women Accounting 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. Women Accounting 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Women Accounting is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Women Accounting 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office, is just above the industry average. Women Accounting 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Women Accounting is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Women Accounting 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Women Accounting 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Women Accounting, firm in the HBR case study Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Women Accounting products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Women Accounting needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Women Accounting is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Women Accounting needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Women Accounting to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office | 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Women Accounting to increase its market reach. Women Accounting 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Women Accounting 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Women Accounting can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Women Accounting operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Women Accounting can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Women Accounting 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Women Accounting to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Women Accounting 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 Women Accounting 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Women Accounting 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Women Accounting 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Women Accounting is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Women Accounting has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Women Accounting to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office case study. Women Accounting can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Women Accounting can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Women Accounting can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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.
Threats Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Women Accounting with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office, Women Accounting 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 .
Increasing wage structure of Women Accounting
– 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 Women Accounting.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Women Accounting is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Women Accounting 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. Women Accounting 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Women Accounting 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Women Accounting has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Women Accounting 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.
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 Women Accounting business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Women Accounting 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office .
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 Women Accounting.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Accountants and Business Advisors, Inc.: City Office 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 Women Accounting needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
