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ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs


Since its inception as an organization dedicated to promoting women's entrepreneurship through coordinated activities, the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh (ALEAP) has gone through different phases, acquiring distinct competencies and resources to offer an integrated approach to helping women entrepreneurs. In the two decades of its operations, ALEAP had established two industrial estates. There was scope to establish more industrial estates for women but ALEAP was contending with severe financial and manpower constraints that would make it difficult to pursue the manufacturing route to develop women entrepreneurs. ALEAP's president believed that it was time to scale up operations and explore new opportunities. However, several questions had to be addressed: What growth strategy should ALEAP adopt? Was it time to look for a new model? Should ALEAP look beyond manufacturing for its growth? Should ALEAP look for innovative approaches to set up incubation centres? Whose support should it seek?

Authors :: Ramesh Avadhanam, Jyothi Pidikiti

Topics :: Strategy & Execution

Tags :: Gender, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs" written by Ramesh Avadhanam, Jyothi Pidikiti includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Aleap Women facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Gender and Strategy & Execution.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Aleap Women, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Aleap Women 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Aleap Women
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 Aleap Women




Strengths ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Aleap Women in ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs Harvard Business Review case study are -

Organizational Resilience of Aleap Women

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Aleap Women does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Learning organization

- Aleap Women 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 Aleap Women is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Aleap Women 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry

– ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Aleap Women to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Aleap Women to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

High brand equity

– Aleap Women has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Aleap Women to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Aleap Women is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Aleap Women in the sector have low bargaining power. ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Aleap Women to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Analytics focus

– Aleap Women 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 Ramesh Avadhanam, Jyothi Pidikiti 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Aleap Women 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs - 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

– Aleap Women 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

– Aleap Women has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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.






Weaknesses ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs are -

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Aleap Women, firm in the HBR case study ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Lack of clear differentiation of Aleap Women products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Aleap Women needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Aleap Women 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. Aleap Women 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Aleap Women is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Aleap Women needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Aleap Women to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Aleap Women has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs HBR case study mentions - Aleap Women 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs, is just above the industry average. Aleap Women 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.

Skills based hiring

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Aleap Women 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Aleap Women has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

High dependence on 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 Aleap Women supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Aleap Women vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High bargaining power of channel partners

– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ramesh Avadhanam, Jyothi Pidikiti suggests that, Aleap Women 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.




Opportunities ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs | 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Aleap Women can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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 Aleap Women in the consumer business. Now Aleap Women can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Aleap Women 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Aleap Women 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.

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 Aleap Women 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Aleap Women in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Aleap Women 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Aleap Women 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, ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Manufacturing automation

– Aleap Women can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Aleap Women can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Aleap Women 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Aleap Women 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Aleap Women to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– Aleap Women 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.




Threats ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs are -

Regulatory challenges

– Aleap Women 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Aleap Women in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Aleap Women 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.

Increasing wage structure of Aleap Women

– 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 Aleap Women.

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.

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 Aleap Women.

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 Aleap Women in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Aleap Women high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.

Instability in the European markets

– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Aleap Women 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 Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Aleap Women can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Environmental challenges

– Aleap Women 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. Aleap Women can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs, Aleap Women 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 .

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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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 ALEAP: A Leap of Faith for Women Entrepreneurs 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 Aleap Women needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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