Swot Analysis of "David Kenny" written by Herminia Ibarra, Cristina Escallon includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Kenny David facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in David Kenny case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the David Kenny casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in David Kenny case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kenny David, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kenny David 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 David Kenny can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in David Kenny case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kenny David
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 Kenny David
Strengths David Kenny | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kenny David in David Kenny Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kenny David digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kenny David 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the David Kenny 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Kenny David is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Kenny David 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 Kenny David is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in David Kenny Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kenny David 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 David Kenny - 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 Strategy & Execution industry
– David Kenny firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kenny David to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kenny David to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Kenny David 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 Kenny David in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kenny David has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kenny David 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kenny David in the sector have low bargaining power. David Kenny has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kenny David to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kenny David in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kenny David 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 David Kenny HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Kenny David is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in David Kenny Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses David Kenny | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of David Kenny are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Kenny David 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kenny David 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 - David Kenny should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Kenny David is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Kenny David needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kenny David to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kenny David 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kenny David 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study David Kenny, in the dynamic environment Kenny David has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kenny David 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 David Kenny HBR case study mentions - Kenny David 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Kenny David, firm in the HBR case study David Kenny needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Herminia Ibarra, Cristina Escallon suggests that, Kenny David 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kenny David is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study David Kenny 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 David Kenny, 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.
Opportunities David Kenny | 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 David Kenny are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kenny David can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kenny David 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 Kenny David 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kenny David to increase its market reach. Kenny David 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kenny David has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Kenny David to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the David Kenny case study. Kenny David can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kenny David 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 David Kenny - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kenny David to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kenny David is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. David Kenny 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kenny David can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
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. Kenny David 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. Kenny David 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kenny David 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Kenny David 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kenny David 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 Kenny David 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, Kenny David 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.
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 Kenny David in the consumer business. Now Kenny David can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats David Kenny External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study David Kenny are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kenny David is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kenny David 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. Kenny David 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kenny David 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 David Kenny .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kenny David 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kenny David 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.
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. Kenny David can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Kenny David
– 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 Kenny David.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kenny David 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kenny David has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kenny David needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Kenny David 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.
Environmental challenges
– Kenny David 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. Kenny David can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Kenny David needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of David Kenny 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 David Kenny 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 David Kenny 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 David Kenny 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 David Kenny 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 Kenny David needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.