Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations
Ambicultural organizations and executives go a step beyond simply embracing different thoughts and behaviors-they transcend divisions to integrate such "opposites" as competition and cooperation, East and West or Chinese and American business approaches and strategies. They combine the best of two or more entities-cultures, ideas, practices-while avoiding the shortcomings of each.
Swot Analysis of "Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations" written by Ming-Jer Chen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ambicultural Opposites facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ambicultural Opposites, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ambicultural Opposites 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ambicultural Opposites
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 Ambicultural Opposites
Strengths Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ambicultural Opposites in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Ambicultural Opposites is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ambicultural Opposites to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ambicultural Opposites to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ambicultural Opposites in the sector have low bargaining power. Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ambicultural Opposites to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Ambicultural Opposites 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 Ambicultural Opposites is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ambicultural Opposites has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ambicultural Opposites 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
– Ambicultural Opposites 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 Ambicultural Opposites in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Ambicultural Opposites has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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
– Ambicultural Opposites 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Ambicultural Opposites is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ambicultural Opposites is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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.
Weaknesses Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Ambicultural Opposites, firm in the HBR case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ambicultural Opposites has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations, in the dynamic environment Ambicultural Opposites has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ambicultural Opposites has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ambicultural Opposites is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ming-Jer Chen suggests that, Ambicultural Opposites 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations, 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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 Ambicultural Opposites 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations, is just above the industry average. Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Opportunities Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations | 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ambicultural Opposites 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.
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. Ambicultural Opposites 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. Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ambicultural Opposites 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
– Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ambicultural Opposites is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ambicultural Opposites can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ambicultural Opposites 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 Ambicultural Opposites 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, Ambicultural Opposites 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, Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Ambicultural Opposites in the consumer business. Now Ambicultural Opposites can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Threats Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ambicultural Opposites 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.
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 Ambicultural Opposites business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Ambicultural Opposites.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ambicultural Opposites 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations .
Increasing wage structure of Ambicultural Opposites
– 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 Ambicultural Opposites.
Environmental challenges
– Ambicultural Opposites 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. Ambicultural Opposites can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ambicultural Opposites with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Ambicultural Opposites can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
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. Ambicultural Opposites 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations, Ambicultural Opposites 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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 Becoming Ambicultural: A Guide for Managers and Organizations 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 Ambicultural Opposites needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.