Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations
From the corridors of political power to the boardroom, the ability to hold your own around the negotiating table is a vital element of success in today's world. Unfortunately, many negotiations end in deadlock. This is partly because many negotiators are unable to come up with creative, integrative deals, which research shows are a significant variable in reaching a conclusion satisfactory to both parties. Using a role-play-based experiment, the author observes 207 dyadic negotiations and discovers that a creative solution in a negotiation depends on the amount of creativity deployed in the tabling of the first offer and the resulting counteroffers. Most surprising, the creativity of the counteroffer appears to be the most significant variable influencing the success of the final deal. With that in mind, he proposes five strategies to help readers be more creative when they negotiate.
Swot Analysis of "Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations" written by Kandarp Mehta includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Creative Negotiations facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Creative Negotiations, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Creative Negotiations
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 Creative Negotiations
Strengths Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Creative Negotiations in Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Creative Negotiations has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Creative Negotiations to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Creative Negotiations has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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.
Analytics focus
– Creative Negotiations 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 Kandarp Mehta 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Creative Negotiations is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Creative Negotiations 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.
Organizational Resilience of Creative Negotiations
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Creative Negotiations does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Creative Negotiations is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Creative Negotiations 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 Creative Negotiations is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Creative Negotiations in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Creative Negotiations digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Creative Negotiations 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Creative Negotiations 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, Kandarp Mehta suggests that, Creative Negotiations 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Creative Negotiations 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations, is just above the industry average. Creative Negotiations 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Creative Negotiations 's lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Creative Negotiations is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Creative Negotiations is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Creative Negotiations needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Creative Negotiations to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations, it seems that the employees of Creative Negotiations 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 Creative Negotiations, firm in the HBR case study Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Opportunities Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations | 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations are -
Manufacturing automation
– Creative Negotiations 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Creative Negotiations has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Creative Negotiations to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations case study. Creative Negotiations can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Creative Negotiations 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. Creative Negotiations 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Creative Negotiations can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Creative Negotiations operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Creative Negotiations 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 Creative Negotiations 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. Creative Negotiations can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Creative Negotiations 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.
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 Creative Negotiations in the consumer business. Now Creative Negotiations can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Creative Negotiations can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Creative Negotiations 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Creative Negotiations is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Creative Negotiations 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Creative Negotiations 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.
Threats Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Creative Negotiations has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Creative Negotiations 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Creative Negotiations 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.
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.
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 Creative Negotiations business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Creative Negotiations 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations, Creative Negotiations 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Creative Negotiations 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. Creative Negotiations can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Creative Negotiations 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.
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. Creative Negotiations needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Creative Negotiations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Creative Negotiations is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Creative Negotiations with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Five Essential Strategies for Creative Negotiations 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 Creative Negotiations needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
