Friend Bank: The Time for Hope SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Friend Bank: The Time for Hope
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.
Swot Analysis of "Friend Bank: The Time for Hope" written by Clayton Rose, Aldo Sesia includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Friend Harris facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Risk management, Strategy execution and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Friend Bank: The Time for Hope
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 case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Friend Harris, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Friend Harris 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 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Friend Harris
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 Friend Harris
Strengths Friend Bank: The Time for Hope | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Friend Harris in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Friend Harris 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 Clayton Rose, Aldo Sesia 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.
Organizational Resilience of Friend Harris
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Friend Harris does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Friend Harris in the sector have low bargaining power. Friend Bank: The Time for Hope has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Friend Harris to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Friend Harris has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Friend Harris to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Friend Harris is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Friend Harris is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Friend Bank: The Time for Hope 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Friend Harris digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Friend Harris 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Friend Harris in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Friend Harris is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Friend Harris 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 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Friend Harris 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Friend Harris 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 HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Friend Bank: The Time for Hope | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Friend Bank: The Time for Hope are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Friend Harris 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. Friend Harris 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope, 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope, in the dynamic environment Friend Harris has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Friend Harris has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Friend Harris is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Friend Harris needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Friend Harris to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Friend Harris products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Friend Harris needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Friend Harris, firm in the HBR case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Friend Harris 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Friend Harris 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Clayton Rose, Aldo Sesia suggests that, Friend Harris 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope 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 Friend Harris has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Friend Harris is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Friend Bank: The Time for Hope can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Friend Bank: The Time for Hope | 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 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. Friend Harris 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, Friend Harris 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.
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. Friend Harris can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Friend Harris 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Friend Harris 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Friend Harris 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, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Friend Harris 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Friend Harris has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Friend Harris to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Friend Bank: The Time for Hope case study. Friend Harris can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Friend Harris can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Friend Bank: The Time for Hope 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Friend Harris 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.
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 Friend Harris 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Friend Harris can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Friend Harris operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Friend Harris is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Friend Bank: The Time for Hope 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.
Threats Friend Bank: The Time for Hope 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 are -
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. Friend Harris can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Harris business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Friend Harris
– 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 Harris.
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 Harris 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Friend Harris 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Friend Harris 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Friend Harris 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 Harris can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Friend Harris 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 Harris 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Friend Harris is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Friend Harris 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 Friend Bank: The Time for Hope 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 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 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 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 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 Harris needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.