Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success
Despite the availability of many methodologies, management approaches, and literature on strategy execution, research suggests that seven out of ten organizations fail to successfully execute their strategies. However, three out of ten organizations do appear to succeed. To find out what these organizations do differently, ten key management elements for successful strategy execution were identified from the literature as well as seven business benefits that could be realized if these elements were performed effectively. Next, 93 organizations were surveyed, followed by focus group meetings with senior managers. While mastery of formal methodologies and development of business cases are important, successful strategy execution is critically dependent on having a portfolio of change programs that are explicitly aligned with the organization's strategy. Further, this portfolio needs to be supported by the strategic leadership team and managed within a culture conducive to change. There are specific actions that organizations need to take to identify which elements of their strategy execution capability need to improve in order to take their performance to the next level.
Authors :: Arnoud Franken, Chris Edwards, Rob Lambert
Swot Analysis of "Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success" written by Arnoud Franken, Chris Edwards, Rob Lambert includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Execution Elements facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy, Leadership and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Execution Elements, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Execution Elements 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Execution Elements
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 Execution Elements
Strengths Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Execution Elements in Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Execution Elements
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Execution Elements does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Execution Elements in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Execution Elements 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 Arnoud Franken, Chris Edwards, Rob Lambert 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Execution Elements 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 Execution Elements in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Execution Elements to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Execution Elements to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Execution Elements is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Execution Elements has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Execution Elements 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Execution Elements 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Execution Elements 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Execution Elements 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 Execution Elements is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Execution Elements 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.
Weaknesses Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success, in the dynamic environment Execution Elements has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Execution Elements has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Execution Elements supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Execution Elements vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Execution Elements 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. Execution Elements 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Execution Elements 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Arnoud Franken, Chris Edwards, Rob Lambert suggests that, Execution Elements 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success, is just above the industry average. Execution Elements 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Execution Elements 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success HBR case study mentions - Execution Elements 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Execution Elements 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 - Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success, it seems that the employees of Execution Elements don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Execution Elements, firm in the HBR case study Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success | 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success are -
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 Execution Elements in the consumer business. Now Execution Elements can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Execution Elements 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Execution Elements 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Execution Elements is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Execution Elements 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Execution Elements 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 Execution Elements to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Execution Elements 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, Execution Elements 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Execution Elements 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, Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Execution Elements can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Execution Elements operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Execution Elements can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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.
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. Execution Elements 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. Execution Elements 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Execution Elements 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.
Threats Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Execution Elements is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Execution Elements.
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 Execution Elements business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Execution Elements 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 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. Execution Elements needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Execution Elements 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Execution Elements 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Execution Elements 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success, Execution Elements 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 .
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. Execution Elements can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Execution Elements in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Execution Elements 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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 Executing Strategic Change: Understanding the Critical Management Elements that Lead to Success 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 Execution Elements needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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