A Change of Management SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of A Change of Management

This case tells the story of the establishment and growth of public television in New Jersey, focused on the rise and fall of its first executive director, Lawrence Frymire. It implicitly raises the question of why Frymire-someone with a distinguished broadcasting career who had overseen the network of publicly-owned stations for a decade and had been responsible for getting them on the air in the first place-seemed suddenly to lose the confidence of the gubernatorially-appointed board to whom he reported. Were the motives of the board, and perhaps New Jersey's Governor, high-minded or narrowly political? What warning signs might Frymire have noted to forestall his dismissal? The case provides a vehicle for discussion about the politics of public authorities and the careers of those who work for them. HKS Case Number 1772.0

Authors :: Dan H. Fenn Jr.

Topics :: Strategy & Execution

Tags :: Communication, Leadership, Policy, Public relations, Social responsibility, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "A Change of Management" written by Dan H. Fenn Jr. includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Frymire 1772.0 facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in A Change of Management case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication, Leadership, Policy, Public relations, Social responsibility and Strategy & Execution.

Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the A Change of Management casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of A Change of Management

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in A Change of Management case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Frymire 1772.0, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Frymire 1772.0 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of A Change of Management can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in A Change of Management case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Frymire 1772.0
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 Frymire 1772.0

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Strengths A Change of Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Frymire 1772.0 in A Change of Management Harvard Business Review case study are -

Organizational Resilience of Frymire 1772.0

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Frymire 1772.0 does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Frymire 1772.0 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.

Analytics focus

– Frymire 1772.0 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 Dan H. Fenn Jr. 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Frymire 1772.0 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.

Strong track record of project management

– Frymire 1772.0 is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Frymire 1772.0 in the sector have low bargaining power. A Change of Management has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Frymire 1772.0 to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Diverse revenue streams

– Frymire 1772.0 is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in A Change of Management 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the A Change of Management 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Frymire 1772.0 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 A Change of Management - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Training and development

– Frymire 1772.0 has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in A Change of Management 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Frymire 1772.0 is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in A Change of Management Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Frymire 1772.0 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 A Change of Management HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

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Weaknesses A Change of Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of A Change of Management are -

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study A Change of Management, is just above the industry average. Frymire 1772.0 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Frymire 1772.0 is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Frymire 1772.0 needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Frymire 1772.0 to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study A Change of Management has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Frymire 1772.0 's lucrative customers.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Frymire 1772.0 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Frymire 1772.0 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– After analyzing the HBR case study A Change of Management, 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Frymire 1772.0, firm in the HBR case study A Change of Management needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Lack of clear differentiation of Frymire 1772.0 products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Frymire 1772.0 needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

High bargaining power of channel partners

– Because of the regulatory requirements, Dan H. Fenn Jr. suggests that, Frymire 1772.0 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 decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Frymire 1772.0 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. Frymire 1772.0 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.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the A Change of Management 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 Frymire 1772.0 has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

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Opportunities A Change of Management | 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 A Change of Management are -

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Frymire 1772.0 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Frymire 1772.0 can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Frymire 1772.0 operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.

Loyalty marketing

– Frymire 1772.0 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.

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. Frymire 1772.0 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. Frymire 1772.0 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.

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 Frymire 1772.0 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Frymire 1772.0 is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. A Change of Management 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Frymire 1772.0 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Frymire 1772.0 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Frymire 1772.0 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, A Change of Management, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Frymire 1772.0 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 Frymire 1772.0 to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Developing new processes and practices

– Frymire 1772.0 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Frymire 1772.0 can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Manufacturing automation

– Frymire 1772.0 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.

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Threats A Change of Management External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats mentioned in the HBR case study A Change of Management are -

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. Frymire 1772.0 needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Frymire 1772.0 is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Frymire 1772.0 has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Frymire 1772.0 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.

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 Frymire 1772.0 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. Frymire 1772.0 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 wage structure of Frymire 1772.0

– 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 Frymire 1772.0.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Frymire 1772.0 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.

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. Frymire 1772.0 can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Frymire 1772.0.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Frymire 1772.0 with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study A Change of Management, Frymire 1772.0 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 .

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Frymire 1772.0 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of A Change of Management 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 A Change of Management 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 A Change of Management 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 A Change of Management 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 A Change of Management 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 Frymire 1772.0 needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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