How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation
Global managers can gain competitive advantage by bridging information gaps -- or structural holes -- between different islands of knowledge within their organizations, whether these are functional areas, business units or geographic markets. By manning these bridges, they are in a unique position to collect and transfer information, and most important, reframe it to make sure that it is understandable across diverse islands. To learn how to gain competitive advantage, however, a clear understanding of the origins of reputation is key. In electronic networks like Amazon and eBay, reputation emerges in a closed system that vendors can directly monitor and manage, since the same information is distributed to everyone. Controlling one's reputation gets a bit trickier in human networks. In this case, closed networks become echo chambers, fed by select bits of information (aka gossip) that is unevenly processed and selectively distributed, depending on the parties involved. The upside of this "information exchange" is its role in cultivating relationships in an organization. The potential downside: its wide-ranging implications for managing reputation.
Swot Analysis of "How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation" written by Ronald S. Burt, Suzanne Hogseth includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Reputation Networks facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Reputation Networks, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Reputation Networks 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Reputation Networks
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 Reputation Networks
Strengths How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Reputation Networks in How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Reputation Networks has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Reputation Networks in the sector have low bargaining power. How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Reputation Networks to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Reputation Networks is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Reputation Networks is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Reputation Networks 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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 recruit top talent
– Reputation Networks is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Reputation Networks 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Reputation Networks 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 Ronald S. Burt, Suzanne Hogseth can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Reputation Networks 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 Reputation Networks
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Reputation Networks does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Reputation Networks 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.
Weaknesses How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Reputation Networks is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Reputation Networks is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Reputation Networks needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Reputation Networks to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation HBR case study mentions - Reputation Networks 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Reputation Networks 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Reputation Networks 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Reputation Networks 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Reputation Networks 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 - How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Reputation Networks is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation, it seems that the employees of Reputation Networks 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Reputation Networks needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Opportunities How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation | 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Reputation Networks 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Reputation Networks 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Reputation Networks to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Reputation Networks can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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.
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. Reputation Networks can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Reputation Networks 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, How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Reputation Networks 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Reputation Networks 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 Reputation Networks in the consumer business. Now Reputation Networks can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Reputation Networks can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Reputation Networks operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Reputation Networks 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.
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 Reputation Networks 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Reputation Networks can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Reputation Networks 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.
Threats How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation are -
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. Reputation Networks can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Reputation Networks.
Increasing wage structure of Reputation Networks
– 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 Reputation Networks.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Reputation Networks is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Reputation Networks needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Reputation Networks 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.
Environmental challenges
– Reputation Networks 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. Reputation Networks can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Reputation Networks 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.
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. Reputation Networks will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Reputation Networks 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation .
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 Reputation Networks in the Strategy & Execution 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 Reputation Networks business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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 How Social Networks Create Competetive Advantage: Building Your Reputation 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 Reputation Networks needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.