Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World
In this interview from Rotman Magazine, the Wharton risk expert states that the hallmarks of the 21st century will likely be more and more unthinkable events, previously-unseen contexts, and pressure to react extremely quickly - even when we cannot predict the cascading impact of our actions. He explains the important role of 'creeping risks' and describes the three top risks for 2010, as outlined in his report for the World Economic Forum: underinvestment in infrastructure; fiscal crises; and chronic disease. In the end, he explains one of the key ironies of living in an interconnected world: that being selfish today means taking care of others.
Swot Analysis of "Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World" written by Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Karen Christensen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Interconnected Creeping facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategic thinking and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Interconnected Creeping, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Interconnected Creeping 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Interconnected Creeping
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 Interconnected Creeping
Strengths Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Interconnected Creeping in Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Interconnected Creeping in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Interconnected Creeping has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Interconnected Creeping to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Interconnected Creeping to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Interconnected Creeping to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Interconnected Creeping 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World - 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
– Interconnected Creeping is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Interconnected Creeping 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Interconnected Creeping in the sector have low bargaining power. Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Interconnected Creeping to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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.
Analytics focus
– Interconnected Creeping 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 Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Karen Christensen 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.
Training and development
– Interconnected Creeping has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Interconnected Creeping 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Interconnected Creeping is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Interconnected Creeping, firm in the HBR case study Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Interconnected Creeping has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Karen Christensen suggests that, Interconnected Creeping 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World, 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Interconnected Creeping 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Interconnected Creeping 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World, in the dynamic environment Interconnected Creeping has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Interconnected Creeping has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World HBR case study mentions - Interconnected Creeping 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Interconnected Creeping 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 - Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Interconnected Creeping is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Interconnected Creeping 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World | 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World are -
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. Interconnected Creeping can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Interconnected Creeping 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Interconnected Creeping is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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.
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. Interconnected Creeping 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. Interconnected Creeping 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Interconnected Creeping 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 Interconnected Creeping to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Interconnected Creeping can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Interconnected Creeping operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Interconnected Creeping 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Interconnected Creeping 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Interconnected Creeping 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, Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Interconnected Creeping 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Interconnected Creeping 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Interconnected Creeping 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Interconnected Creeping 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Interconnected Creeping to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Interconnected Creeping is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Interconnected Creeping
– 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 Interconnected Creeping.
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. Interconnected Creeping 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.
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 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.
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. Interconnected Creeping can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Interconnected Creeping business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Interconnected Creeping 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World, Interconnected Creeping 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 .
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. Interconnected Creeping needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Interconnected Creeping 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Interconnected Creeping 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Interconnected Creeping 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Risk Management 2.0: Reassessing Risk in an Interconnected World 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 Interconnected Creeping needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
