The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy!
Dr. Fred Carroll, a professor at Regency State, a large university in the Southeast, stopped in to talk to his department chairman, Dr. Ken Winston, about a likely change in the summer faculty pay plan. Rumors were circulating that summer teaching compensation would be cut. Winston, in an uncomfortable situation, replied that the College faced a serious budget shortfall, and the administration was looking at ways to reduce costs, in particular, the high costs of summer instruction. Carroll, who formerly had been a department chair, countered that summer compensation was just one of many possible areas for reducing costs and identified several other options. He did not accept the explanation that the budget must be balanced by reducing summer pay, and remarked that it was unfair, even discriminatory, and contrary to University policy. He vowed to investigate the situation and talk with Winston again. Along with Carroll several other faculty members had expressed their concerns about changes in summer pay to Winston. Faculty summer pay at Regency State was based on a percentage formula that was tied to the faculty member's academic year; those with higher salaries earned higher pay for a summer course. To reduce the summer compensation budget by about 25%, the dean, associate dean, and department chairs were looking at various ways of cutting costs. With the tradition of many year-round students and large summer enrollments, many faculty members were accustomed to getting significant summer pay to supplement their academic-year salaries. Winston, along with the other College administrators, were challenged in identifying alternatives and finding a satisfactory solution to the budget problem that would reduce summer compensation costs yet minimize adverse effects on faculty morale.
Swot Analysis of "The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy!" written by Thomas R. Miller includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Summer Winston facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Motivating people, Organizational culture and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy!
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Summer Winston, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Summer Winston 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Summer Winston
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 Summer Winston
Strengths The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Summer Winston in The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Summer Winston 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 Summer Winston in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Summer Winston has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Summer Winston to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Summer Winston in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Summer Winston 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 Summer Winston is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Summer Winston 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Summer Winston
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Summer Winston does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Summer Winston has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Summer Winston 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Summer Winston has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Summer Winston 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.
Analytics focus
– Summer Winston 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 Thomas R. Miller 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Summer Winston to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Summer Winston to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Summer Winston is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Weaknesses The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Thomas R. Miller suggests that, Summer Winston 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy!, in the dynamic environment Summer Winston has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Summer Winston has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Summer Winston 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Summer Winston 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Summer Winston products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Summer Winston needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Summer Winston 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Summer Winston is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Summer Winston needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Summer Winston to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Summer Winston 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Summer Winston, firm in the HBR case study The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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 Summer Winston has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Summer Winston 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.
Opportunities The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! | 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Summer Winston to increase its market reach. Summer Winston 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Summer Winston is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Summer Winston 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Summer Winston can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Summer Winston can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Summer Winston can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Loyalty marketing
– Summer Winston 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Summer Winston 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Summer Winston 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Summer Winston to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Summer Winston 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.
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. Summer Winston can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Summer Winston 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Summer Winston 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Summer Winston can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Summer Winston is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Summer Winston 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. Summer Winston can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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 Summer Winston in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Summer Winston
– 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 Summer Winston.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Summer Winston with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Summer Winston needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Summer Winston has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Summer Winston 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 Summer Winston business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy!, Summer Winston 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Summer Winston 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.
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. Summer Winston 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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 The New Pay Plan: Summertime and the Livin's Not Easy! 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 Summer Winston needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.