Case Study Description of Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted
After years of vigorous denials, on January 14, 2013 Lance Armstrong admitted in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey that he "doped" in each of his record seven consecutive Tour de France victories, confirming the findings a few months earlier by the US Anti-Doping Agency that he had orchestrated "a massive team doping scheme, more extensive than any previously revealed in professional sports history." Until that moment with Oprah, Armstrong had consistently and strenuously denied using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), blood transfusions, or other artificial enhancers to compete in the grueling, three-week race throughout France. He verbally thrashed, bullied and threatened legal action against riders, journalists, race officials, and anyone else who had suggested he had cheated. This case explores Armstrong's leadership of a corrupt culture, the extensive nature of the cheating scandal among elite athletes, the decisions taken by other riders to both support Armstrong and his scheme and ultimately to admit to cheating, and the costs borne by those associated with Armstrong. It allows for discussion of the responsibilities that leaders have to followers, and that followers have to themselves and to others.
Swot Analysis of "Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted" written by Clayton Rose, Noah Fisher includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Armstrong Doping facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Leadership and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Armstrong Doping, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Armstrong Doping 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Armstrong Doping
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 Armstrong Doping
Strengths Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Armstrong Doping in Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Armstrong Doping 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 Armstrong Doping in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Armstrong Doping 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 Armstrong Doping is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Armstrong Doping in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Armstrong Doping is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Armstrong Doping 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Armstrong Doping is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted 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 Armstrong Doping in the sector have low bargaining power. Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Armstrong Doping to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Armstrong Doping 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted - 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
– Armstrong Doping is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Armstrong Doping has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted 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
– Armstrong Doping 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Armstrong Doping digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Armstrong Doping 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.
Weaknesses Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted, it seems that the employees of Armstrong Doping 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted, is just above the industry average. Armstrong Doping 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Armstrong Doping 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 - Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Clayton Rose, Noah Fisher suggests that, Armstrong Doping 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Armstrong Doping 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Armstrong Doping is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Armstrong Doping needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Armstrong Doping to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Armstrong Doping 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. Armstrong Doping 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted HBR case study mentions - Armstrong Doping 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Armstrong Doping products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Armstrong Doping needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Armstrong Doping, firm in the HBR case study Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Armstrong Doping 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.
Opportunities Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted | 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Armstrong Doping 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Armstrong Doping 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, Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Armstrong Doping 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Armstrong Doping can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Armstrong Doping 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Armstrong Doping 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Armstrong Doping 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 Armstrong Doping to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Armstrong Doping 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Armstrong Doping 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Armstrong Doping to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Armstrong Doping can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Armstrong Doping operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Armstrong Doping 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Armstrong Doping to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Armstrong Doping 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.
Threats Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Armstrong Doping with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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. Armstrong Doping 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Armstrong Doping 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Armstrong Doping 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.
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 Armstrong Doping in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Armstrong Doping 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted, Armstrong Doping 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 .
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 Armstrong Doping.
Environmental challenges
– Armstrong Doping 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. Armstrong Doping can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Armstrong Doping 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.
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. Armstrong Doping can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted 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 Following Lance Armstrong: Excellence Corrupted 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 Armstrong Doping needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
