Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged)
In 2010, Friend Bank was entering the fifth year of Hope Harris Johnson's ambitious 20-year growth plan to transform her family's one-branch community bank into an institution with a substantial presence in southeastern Alabama. Harris Johnson was pleased, so far, with the results. Strategically they had exceeded expectations in opening a second office and execution of the plan was going well. And while the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 had affected the financial results, it also presented Friend with competitive opportunities. Nonetheless, realizing her ultimate goals for Friend would not come easily. This is a shorter version of "Friend Bank: The Time for Hope," HBS No. 310-070.
Swot Analysis of "Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged)" written by Clayton Rose, Aldo Sesia includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Friend Hope facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) casestudy better are - – technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Friend Hope, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Friend Hope 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Friend Hope
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Friend Hope
Strengths Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Friend Hope in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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
- Friend Hope 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 Friend Hope is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Friend Hope in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Friend Hope has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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
– Friend Hope 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Friend Hope 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Friend Hope to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Friend Hope to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Friend Hope is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Friend Hope is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Friend Hope is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Friend Hope
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Friend Hope does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Friend Hope 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 Friend Hope in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Friend Hope 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged), is just above the industry average. Friend Hope 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.
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 Friend Hope supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Friend Hope vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Friend Hope 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged), in the dynamic environment Friend Hope has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Friend Hope 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) HBR case study mentions - Friend Hope 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged), it seems that the employees of Friend Hope 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Friend Hope 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Friend Hope 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Friend Hope is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Friend Hope 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.
Opportunities Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) | 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Friend Hope 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, Friend Hope 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, Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged), 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 Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Friend Hope can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Friend Hope 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Friend Hope 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Friend Hope has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Friend Hope to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) case study. Friend Hope can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Friend Hope 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 Friend Hope to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Friend Hope 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. Friend Hope 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Friend Hope can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Friend Hope 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
– Friend Hope can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Friend Hope can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Friend Hope in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Friend Hope 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Friend Hope 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
– Friend Hope 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 Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged), Friend Hope may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Friend Hope is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Friend Hope in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Friend Hope 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. Friend Hope can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing wage structure of Friend Hope
– 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 Friend Hope.
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. Friend Hope 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Friend Hope 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Friend Hope has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Friend Hope needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing 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.
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 Friend Hope business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Friend Hope.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope (Abridged) 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 Friend Hope needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.