The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems
As Asia's population and per capita incomes rise, four key components of its natural resource base are set to decline substantially. The authors group the environmental problems that confront Asia into four categories-water management, deforestation and land degradation, air pollution, and climate change. They then provide seven policy objectives that can serve as a platform from which to address these problems, at both regional and local levels. Embracing these objectives, they believe, will facilitate the management of Asia's environmental problems to 2030 and beyond.
Swot Analysis of "The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems" written by Stephen Howes, Paul Wyroll includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Asia's Environmental facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Managing organizations and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Asia's Environmental, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Asia's Environmental operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Asia's Environmental
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 Asia's Environmental
Strengths The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Asia's Environmental in The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Asia's Environmental is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Asia's Environmental has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Asia's Environmental 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Asia's Environmental to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Asia's Environmental to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Asia's Environmental in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Asia's Environmental has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Asia's Environmental to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Asia's Environmental
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Asia's Environmental does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Asia's Environmental 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems 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.
Learning organization
- Asia's Environmental 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 Asia's Environmental is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Asia's Environmental is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Asia's Environmental has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Asia's Environmental 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 Asia's Environmental in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Asia's Environmental products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Asia's Environmental needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Asia's Environmental 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Asia's Environmental 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stephen Howes, Paul Wyroll suggests that, Asia's Environmental 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Asia's Environmental 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Asia's Environmental 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Asia's Environmental 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems, it seems that the employees of Asia's Environmental don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Asia's Environmental, firm in the HBR case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Asia's Environmental supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Asia's Environmental vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Asia's Environmental 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 - The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Asia's Environmental 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Asia's Environmental can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Asia's Environmental in the consumer business. Now Asia's Environmental can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Asia's Environmental 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, The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Asia's Environmental 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 Asia's Environmental to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Asia's Environmental has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Asia's Environmental 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 Asia's Environmental 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Asia's Environmental to increase its market reach. Asia's Environmental 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.
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 Asia's Environmental 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.
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. Asia's Environmental can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Asia's Environmental 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.
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. Asia's Environmental can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Asia's Environmental 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. Asia's Environmental 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.
Threats The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems are -
Increasing wage structure of Asia's Environmental
– 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 Asia's Environmental.
Regulatory challenges
– Asia's Environmental 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Asia's Environmental has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Asia's Environmental 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Asia's Environmental 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Asia's Environmental 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 The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems, Asia's Environmental 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Asia's Environmental with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Asia's Environmental 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.
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. Asia's Environmental can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Asia's Environmental 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 The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems .
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 Asia's Environmental.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Asia's Environmental is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of The Downside of Growth: Asia's Wicked Environmental Problems 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 Asia's Environmental needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
