Rosemary Brooks spent seven years at Lockheed, but was interested in joining a company where she could take more of a "customer facing" role. Brooks' healthy appetite for risk, her desire to make an impact, and the growing number of opportunities in technology drew her to this sector. In 1995, she joined Formtek. During the next five years, Brooks worked for three small technology companies. In 2000, Brooks was tired and ready for a break. She took off two years to spend time with her son. After the two-year hiatus, Brooks heard about an opportunity at a start-up called Chinablue. Richard Wong founded the company in 2000 with the intent of bringing Shanghai-style consumer products to the United States via a luxury lifestyle brand. Wong asked Brooks to partner with him and become the CEO of the company. Brooks used four questions to evaluate the Chinablue opportunity. She first examined how well her skills fit with the opportunity: were the economics of the business model sound? What were the immediate funding needs of the company? and How well would a Brooks/Wong partnership work?
Authors :: Garth Saloner, Aisa Aiyer, Carly Irestone, Alexander Tauber
Swot Analysis of "Rosemary Brooks" written by Garth Saloner, Aisa Aiyer, Carly Irestone, Alexander Tauber includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Brooks Wong facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rosemary Brooks case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Gender, Joint ventures, Work-life balance and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rosemary Brooks casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rosemary Brooks case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brooks Wong, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brooks Wong 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 Rosemary Brooks can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rosemary Brooks case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brooks Wong
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 Brooks Wong
Strengths Rosemary Brooks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brooks Wong in Rosemary Brooks Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Brooks Wong 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 Garth Saloner, Aisa Aiyer, Carly Irestone, Alexander Tauber 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.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Brooks Wong 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 Brooks Wong in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Brooks Wong is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Rosemary Brooks are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Brooks Wong 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 Rosemary Brooks - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Brooks Wong 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Rosemary Brooks 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Brooks Wong 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 Rosemary Brooks HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Brooks Wong has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Brooks Wong has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Innovation driven organization
– Brooks Wong is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Rosemary Brooks Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– Brooks Wong has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brooks Wong to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Brooks Wong 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 Brooks Wong is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Rosemary Brooks Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Brooks Wong in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Rosemary Brooks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rosemary Brooks are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Brooks Wong 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Brooks Wong 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 - Rosemary Brooks should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Brooks Wong 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Rosemary Brooks, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Rosemary Brooks 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 Rosemary Brooks can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Brooks Wong is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Garth Saloner, Aisa Aiyer, Carly Irestone, Alexander Tauber suggests that, Brooks Wong is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brooks Wong, firm in the HBR case study Rosemary Brooks needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Brooks Wong 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Brooks Wong is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Brooks Wong needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Brooks Wong to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Brooks Wong is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Rosemary Brooks can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Brooks Wong 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. Brooks Wong 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.
Opportunities Rosemary Brooks | 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 Rosemary Brooks are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Brooks Wong 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 Rosemary Brooks - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Brooks Wong to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brooks Wong 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, Rosemary Brooks, 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, Brooks Wong can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Brooks Wong operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Brooks Wong has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Brooks Wong to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Rosemary Brooks case study. Brooks Wong can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Brooks Wong 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 Brooks Wong to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Brooks Wong can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Brooks Wong 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
– Brooks Wong can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Rosemary Brooks 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Brooks Wong 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Brooks Wong 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Brooks Wong is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rosemary Brooks 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Brooks Wong can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Brooks Wong in the consumer business. Now Brooks Wong can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Rosemary Brooks External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rosemary Brooks are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Brooks Wong demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Rosemary Brooks, Brooks Wong 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Brooks Wong has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Brooks Wong 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 Brooks Wong 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 Brooks Wong.
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. Brooks Wong 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
– Brooks Wong 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.
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. Brooks Wong can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Brooks Wong with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Brooks Wong in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brooks Wong 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.
Environmental challenges
– Brooks Wong 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. Brooks Wong can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Brooks Wong 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 Rosemary Brooks .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rosemary Brooks 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 Rosemary Brooks 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 Rosemary Brooks 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 Rosemary Brooks 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 Rosemary Brooks 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 Brooks Wong needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.