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What is Your Strategy? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of What is Your Strategy?


What you need to be able to talk about intelligently if you mention that you have a strategy: 1) your overall strategic direction; 2) your strategic targets; 3) your competitive formula; 4) your current competitive challenges; 5) the resources and capabilities you need; 6) your competitive advantages; 7) your strategic priorities and 8) how you communicate your strategy in a simple, compelling way in form of a "strategy elevator statement". Learning objectives: What the key building blocks of a strategy are.

Authors :: Xavier Gilbert

Topics :: Strategy & Execution

Tags :: Competition, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "What is Your Strategy?" written by Xavier Gilbert includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Intelligently Strategy facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in What is Your Strategy? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competition and Strategy & Execution.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the What is Your Strategy? casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of What is Your Strategy?


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in What is Your Strategy? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Intelligently Strategy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Intelligently Strategy 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 What is Your Strategy? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in What is Your Strategy? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Intelligently Strategy
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 Intelligently Strategy




Strengths What is Your Strategy? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Intelligently Strategy in What is Your Strategy? Harvard Business Review case study are -

Successful track record of launching new products

– Intelligently Strategy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Intelligently Strategy 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.

Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field

– Intelligently Strategy 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 Intelligently Strategy in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Intelligently Strategy 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.

Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Intelligently Strategy digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Intelligently Strategy 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Intelligently Strategy 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.

Learning organization

- Intelligently Strategy 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 Intelligently Strategy is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in What is Your Strategy? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Analytics focus

– Intelligently Strategy 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 Xavier Gilbert 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.

Training and development

– Intelligently Strategy has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in What is Your Strategy? 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Intelligently Strategy 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 What is Your Strategy? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Diverse revenue streams

– Intelligently Strategy is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in What is Your Strategy? 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Intelligently Strategy is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the What is Your Strategy? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry

– What is Your Strategy? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Intelligently Strategy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Intelligently Strategy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.






Weaknesses What is Your Strategy? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of What is Your Strategy? are -

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 Intelligently Strategy supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - What is Your Strategy?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Intelligently Strategy vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Intelligently Strategy has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Intelligently Strategy 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 Intelligently Strategy, firm in the HBR case study What is Your Strategy? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study What is Your Strategy? 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 Intelligently Strategy 's lucrative customers.

Skills based hiring

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Intelligently Strategy 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 dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the What is Your Strategy? 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 Intelligently Strategy has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Lack of clear differentiation of Intelligently Strategy products

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

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study What is Your Strategy?, is just above the industry average. Intelligently Strategy 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 bargaining power of channel partners

– Because of the regulatory requirements, Xavier Gilbert suggests that, Intelligently Strategy 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 to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Intelligently Strategy is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study What is Your Strategy? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.




Opportunities What is Your Strategy? | 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 What is Your Strategy? are -

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Intelligently Strategy 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.

Increase in government spending

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

Loyalty marketing

– Intelligently Strategy 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 Intelligently Strategy 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 Intelligently Strategy to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Intelligently Strategy has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Intelligently Strategy to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the What is Your Strategy? case study. Intelligently Strategy can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Intelligently Strategy 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.

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. Intelligently Strategy 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. Intelligently Strategy 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Intelligently Strategy is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. What is Your Strategy? 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.

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. Intelligently Strategy can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Developing new processes and practices

– Intelligently Strategy 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Intelligently Strategy has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study What is Your Strategy? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Intelligently Strategy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Intelligently Strategy 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, What is Your Strategy?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Intelligently Strategy 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.




Threats What is Your Strategy? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study What is Your Strategy? are -

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Intelligently Strategy 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.

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 Intelligently Strategy in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

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

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 Intelligently Strategy.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Intelligently Strategy in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.

Increasing wage structure of Intelligently Strategy

– 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 Intelligently Strategy.

Regulatory challenges

– Intelligently Strategy 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Intelligently Strategy 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.

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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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 Intelligently Strategy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Intelligently Strategy 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 What is Your Strategy? .




Weighted SWOT Analysis of What is Your Strategy? 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 What is Your Strategy? 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 What is Your Strategy? 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 What is Your Strategy? 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 What is Your Strategy? 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 Intelligently Strategy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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