Two employees at 8SK Consulting, a major firm with 800 staff in five divisions, need to find a way to manage their leader effectively. A junior hire who is ready to take on more responsibility in order to advance her career is frustrated - although her leader has previously played an important role as her mentor and guide in the company, he now seems to be in the way of her promotion to more important positions. A senior quality specialist wants to refuse an offered team leader role, because of family concerns, but is worried how that may disappoint her boss and how it might affect not only hers but his career. How can these employees effectively and proactively manage a leader in order to reach personal and career goals?
Swot Analysis of "Managing Up (A): Grace" written by Karen MacMillan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Leader Career facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Managing Up (A): Grace case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Decision making, Influence, Negotiations and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Managing Up (A): Grace casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Managing Up (A): Grace
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Managing Up (A): Grace case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Leader Career, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Leader Career 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 Managing Up (A): Grace can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Managing Up (A): Grace case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Leader Career
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 Leader Career
Strengths Managing Up (A): Grace | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Leader Career in Managing Up (A): Grace Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Leader Career 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 Leader Career is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Managing Up (A): Grace Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Leader Career 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 Managing Up (A): Grace - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Managing Up (A): Grace firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Leader Career to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Leader Career to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Leader Career has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Leader Career to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Leader Career digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Leader Career 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 lead change in Organizational Development field
– Leader Career 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 Leader Career in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Leader Career 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 Managing Up (A): Grace HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Managing Up (A): Grace 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.
Organizational Resilience of Leader Career
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Leader Career 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 Leader Career in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Leader Career 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Leader Career is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Managing Up (A): Grace | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Managing Up (A): Grace are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Leader Career 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Leader Career, firm in the HBR case study Managing Up (A): Grace needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Leader Career 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Leader Career 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Managing Up (A): Grace 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 Leader Career has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Managing Up (A): Grace, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Leader Career 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 - Managing Up (A): Grace should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Leader Career 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Managing Up (A): Grace 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 Managing Up (A): Grace can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Leader Career is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Karen MacMillan suggests that, Leader Career 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.
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 Leader Career supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Managing Up (A): Grace, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Leader Career vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Managing Up (A): Grace | 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 Managing Up (A): Grace are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Leader Career 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 Managing Up (A): Grace - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Leader Career to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Leader Career 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 Leader Career 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Leader Career 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, Managing Up (A): Grace, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Leader Career 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. Leader Career 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Leader Career can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Leader Career operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Leader Career 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Leader Career 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Leader Career 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Leader Career can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Managing Up (A): Grace 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Leader Career 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 Leader Career to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Leader Career 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Leader Career has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Leader Career to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Managing Up (A): Grace case study. Leader Career can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Managing Up (A): Grace External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Managing Up (A): Grace are -
Increasing wage structure of Leader Career
– 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 Leader Career.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Leader Career is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Leader Career 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. Leader Career can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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 Leader Career.
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. Leader Career can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Leader Career 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Leader Career 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 Managing Up (A): Grace .
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 Leader Career 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 Leader Career 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.
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 Leader Career 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 Managing Up (A): Grace, Leader Career 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 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.
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. Leader Career needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Managing Up (A): Grace 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 Managing Up (A): Grace 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 Managing Up (A): Grace 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 Managing Up (A): Grace 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 Managing Up (A): Grace 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 Leader Career needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.