The head of SysCom's test equipment division is concerned about how to answer employee and customer questions concerning the possible sale or liquidation of the division. The consequences of alternative approaches (full transparency vs. strong optimism and reassurance) for the various parties differ substantially. Also involves important legal, regulatory, and reporting requirements.
Swot Analysis of "Scott Lawson's Dilemma" written by Thomas R. Piper includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lawson's Reassurance facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Scott Lawson's Dilemma case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Regulation, Reorganization and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Scott Lawson's Dilemma casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Scott Lawson's Dilemma
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Scott Lawson's Dilemma case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lawson's Reassurance, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lawson's Reassurance 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Scott Lawson's Dilemma case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lawson's Reassurance
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lawson's Reassurance
Strengths Scott Lawson's Dilemma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lawson's Reassurance in Scott Lawson's Dilemma Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lawson's Reassurance is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Scott Lawson's Dilemma are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lawson's Reassurance digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Scott Lawson's Dilemma firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Lawson's Reassurance to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Lawson's Reassurance to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Lawson's Reassurance 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 Lawson's Reassurance in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lawson's Reassurance in the sector have low bargaining power. Scott Lawson's Dilemma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lawson's Reassurance to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Lawson's Reassurance 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Lawson's Reassurance is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Scott Lawson's Dilemma Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Lawson's Reassurance is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Organizational Resilience of Lawson's Reassurance
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lawson's Reassurance does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Scott Lawson's Dilemma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Scott Lawson's Dilemma are -
Need for greater diversity
– Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Scott Lawson's Dilemma that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Scott Lawson's Dilemma can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lawson's Reassurance is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Scott Lawson's Dilemma HBR case study mentions - Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Lawson's Reassurance products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Lawson's Reassurance needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Lawson's Reassurance, firm in the HBR case study Scott Lawson's Dilemma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lawson's Reassurance 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.
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 Lawson's Reassurance supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Scott Lawson's Dilemma, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Lawson's Reassurance vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lawson's Reassurance 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. Lawson's Reassurance 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Thomas R. Piper suggests that, Lawson's Reassurance 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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 Lawson's Reassurance has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Scott Lawson's Dilemma | 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lawson's Reassurance can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Lawson's Reassurance can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Finance & Accounting 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lawson's Reassurance 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.
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 Lawson's Reassurance in the consumer business. Now Lawson's Reassurance can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lawson's Reassurance has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Lawson's Reassurance to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Scott Lawson's Dilemma case study. Lawson's Reassurance can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lawson's Reassurance can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Lawson's Reassurance 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 Lawson's Reassurance 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 Lawson's Reassurance to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lawson's Reassurance 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, Scott Lawson's Dilemma, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Lawson's Reassurance 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
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 Lawson's Reassurance to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lawson's Reassurance in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lawson's Reassurance 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. Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Threats Scott Lawson's Dilemma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Scott Lawson's Dilemma are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lawson's Reassurance has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lawson's Reassurance needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Environmental challenges
– Lawson's Reassurance 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. Lawson's Reassurance can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lawson's Reassurance in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Scott Lawson's Dilemma, Lawson's Reassurance may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Lawson's Reassurance can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lawson's Reassurance 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lawson's Reassurance is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lawson's Reassurance 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma .
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. Lawson's Reassurance 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.
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 Lawson's Reassurance in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Lawson's Reassurance business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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 Scott Lawson's Dilemma 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 Lawson's Reassurance needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
