KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice
KingJewels, one of the leading jewelry manufacturing and trading companies in Hong Kong, was having another profitable year. With its operations director essentially running the company in Hong Kong while the owner and CEO focused his energies on expanding the business into international markets, an opportunity had arisen for foul play. Accounting records had been manipulated and some senior staff were found to have forged shipping documents and accepted bribes from suppliers in exchange for awarding contracts. To complicate matters further, the professional and personal relationships between some key players in the company were blurred, making it even more difficult for the eventual whistle blower to decide her course of action. Illustrates the importance of corporate governance and internal control, even for SMEs, and especially when senior management members of the company concerned had ties that extended beyond professional relationships.
Swot Analysis of "KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice" written by MacY Wong, Amy Lau, Raymond Wong includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Kingjewels Blower facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate governance, Ethics and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kingjewels Blower, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kingjewels Blower 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kingjewels Blower
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 Kingjewels Blower
Strengths KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kingjewels Blower in KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kingjewels Blower to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kingjewels Blower to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kingjewels Blower has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kingjewels Blower 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.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kingjewels Blower digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kingjewels Blower 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kingjewels Blower in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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.
High brand equity
– Kingjewels Blower has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kingjewels Blower to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Kingjewels Blower 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 Kingjewels Blower in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Kingjewels Blower is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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.
Training and development
– Kingjewels Blower has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kingjewels Blower 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Kingjewels Blower is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kingjewels Blower 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Kingjewels Blower products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kingjewels Blower needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, MacY Wong, Amy Lau, Raymond Wong suggests that, Kingjewels Blower 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice HBR case study mentions - Kingjewels Blower takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice, in the dynamic environment Kingjewels Blower has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kingjewels Blower has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kingjewels Blower 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Kingjewels Blower, firm in the HBR case study KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kingjewels Blower 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. Kingjewels Blower 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Kingjewels Blower 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kingjewels Blower 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice, is just above the industry average. Kingjewels Blower 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Kingjewels Blower 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.
Opportunities KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice | 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice are -
Manufacturing automation
– Kingjewels Blower 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Kingjewels Blower can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kingjewels Blower to increase its market reach. Kingjewels Blower 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Kingjewels Blower 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.
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. Kingjewels Blower can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kingjewels Blower is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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.
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. Kingjewels Blower can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kingjewels Blower has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Kingjewels Blower to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice case study. Kingjewels Blower can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kingjewels Blower 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.
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 Kingjewels Blower 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.
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. Kingjewels Blower 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. Kingjewels Blower 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kingjewels Blower 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kingjewels Blower 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.
Threats KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kingjewels Blower can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kingjewels Blower is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Kingjewels Blower 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice, Kingjewels Blower 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kingjewels Blower has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kingjewels Blower 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kingjewels Blower 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.
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. Kingjewels Blower can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Kingjewels Blower
– 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 Kingjewels Blower.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kingjewels Blower 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Kingjewels Blower 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.
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 Kingjewels Blower in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kingjewels Blower 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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 KingJewels: Ethical Leadership in Practice 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 Kingjewels Blower needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
