WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP
Leading up to the completion of a successful partnership between Hewlett-Packard Canada and World Wildlife Fund Canada, the two individuals who championed the program contemplate their separate and joint next steps: should their organizations renew or exit the partnership? Together, they had designed and delivered a world-first program, Living Planet @ Work, which had enrolled more than 500 companies, large and small, whose employees had already raised more than $1 million in charitable donations through workplace giving. The program was helping corporate Canada harness the collective desire and power of their employees for the good of business and the future of the planet. The two champions had a short window to go global and scale up the positive impact of the program.
Swot Analysis of "WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP" written by Oana Branzei, Haiying Lin, Dwarkaprasad Chakrvarty includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Planet Championed facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, Sustainability and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Planet Championed, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Planet Championed 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Planet Championed
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Planet Championed
Strengths WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Planet Championed in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Planet Championed is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Planet Championed is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Oana Branzei, Haiying Lin, Dwarkaprasad Chakrvarty can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Diverse revenue streams
– Planet Championed is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Planet Championed has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Planet Championed 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Planet Championed digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Planet Championed 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Planet Championed in the sector have low bargaining power. WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Planet Championed to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Planet Championed 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
– Planet Championed has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Planet Championed to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Planet Championed 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 Planet Championed is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Planet Championed has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Planet Championed 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Planet Championed is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP are -
Need for greater diversity
– Planet Championed 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 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 Planet Championed supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Planet Championed vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Planet Championed products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Planet Championed needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Planet Championed 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Planet Championed 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP HBR case study mentions - Planet Championed 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Planet Championed 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP, is just above the industry average. Planet Championed 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Planet Championed is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Planet Championed 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. Planet Championed 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.
Opportunities WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP | 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP are -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Planet Championed can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Planet Championed 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Planet Championed 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Planet Championed 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Planet Championed is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Planet Championed to increase its market reach. Planet Championed 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Planet Championed can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Planet Championed 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Planet Championed to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Planet Championed 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. Planet Championed 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Planet Championed can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Planet Championed operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
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 Planet Championed 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Planet Championed can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Planet Championed 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, WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Planet Championed is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Planet Championed
– 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 Planet Championed.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Planet Championed 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP, Planet Championed may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
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 Planet Championed business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Planet Championed 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP .
Regulatory challenges
– Planet Championed 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
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. Planet Championed 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Planet Championed 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.
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 Planet Championed in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Planet Championed 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. Planet Championed can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Planet Championed 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP 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 WWF's Living Planet @ Work: Championed by HP 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 Planet Championed needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.