Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts
Daren Kemp, a partner at leadership consultancy and executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, is responsible for the firm's relationship with Standard Chartered Bank (Standard Chartered). Standard Chartered is one of 94 companies in Heidrick's strategic partners program (SPP). The purpose of the SPP is to build strategic, value-based relationships with clients. Kemp joined Heidrick in 2008 and by 2010 has successfully built a strong relationship with Standard Chartered. The case describes how Kemp and his team grew this relationship and raises questions about what can be learned from this experience and applied to the other accounts in the SPP.
Swot Analysis of "Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts" written by Robert G. Eccles, Kerry Herman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Chartered Spp facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture, Strategy and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chartered Spp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chartered Spp 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chartered Spp
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 Chartered Spp
Strengths Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chartered Spp in Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Chartered Spp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Chartered Spp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Chartered Spp 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 Chartered Spp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Chartered Spp 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.
Training and development
– Chartered Spp has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Chartered Spp 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.
High brand equity
– Chartered Spp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Chartered Spp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Chartered Spp 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Chartered Spp in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Chartered Spp is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Chartered Spp is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Chartered Spp in the sector have low bargaining power. Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chartered Spp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Chartered Spp 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Chartered Spp 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Chartered Spp has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Chartered Spp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts HBR case study mentions - Chartered Spp 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Chartered Spp, firm in the HBR case study Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Chartered Spp 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Chartered Spp 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 - Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Chartered Spp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Chartered Spp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Chartered Spp 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Robert G. Eccles, Kerry Herman suggests that, Chartered Spp 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Chartered Spp 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.
Opportunities Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts | 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Chartered Spp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Chartered Spp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Chartered Spp 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 Chartered Spp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Chartered Spp 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Chartered Spp 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Chartered Spp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Chartered Spp 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Chartered Spp 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.
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. Chartered Spp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Chartered Spp 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
– Chartered Spp 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
– Chartered Spp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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. Chartered Spp 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. Chartered Spp 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Chartered Spp 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, Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Chartered Spp can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts are -
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 Chartered Spp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Chartered Spp 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Chartered Spp 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. Chartered Spp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts, Chartered Spp 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Chartered Spp 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.
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. Chartered Spp 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.
Environmental challenges
– Chartered Spp 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. Chartered Spp 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 Chartered Spp.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Chartered Spp
– 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 Chartered Spp.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Chartered Spp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Chartered Spp 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Heidrick & Struggles and Standard Chartered Bank: Managing Global Key Accounts 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 Chartered Spp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
