Case Study Description of Innovation and Leadership Values
U.S. leadership in technological innovation has remained an important source of national income and pride. Indeed, recognizing that advanced economies compete primarily on the basis of innovation, U.S. scholars were among the early leaders in studying and describing effective organizational approaches to knowledge creation, sharing, and utilization. Nevertheless, despite their established capabilities, U.S. firms apparently still make use of only a fraction of their available knowledge. While the U.S. still has the world's leading research universities and is home to many world-class firms that champion technology and innovation, there are growing concerns that the business values and practices essential to the creation and sharing of knowledge and its full utilization in innovation initiatives may not be evolving at the same pace in the U.S. as they are in some of its leading foreign competitors. Examines some of the current criticisms and concerns about management practices in U.S. firms and discusses the management theories and behavioral prescriptions that are critical to maintaining global leadership in innovation-based economic competitiveness.
Swot Analysis of "Innovation and Leadership Values" written by Raymond E. Miles includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Innovation U.s facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Innovation and Leadership Values case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, Knowledge management, Leadership, Managing people, Organizational culture, Technology and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Innovation and Leadership Values casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Innovation and Leadership Values
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Innovation and Leadership Values case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Innovation U.s, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Innovation U.s 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 Innovation and Leadership Values can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Innovation and Leadership Values case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Innovation U.s
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 Innovation U.s
Strengths Innovation and Leadership Values | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Innovation U.s in Innovation and Leadership Values Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Innovation U.s is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Innovation and Leadership Values 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.
Training and development
– Innovation U.s has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Innovation and Leadership Values 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Innovation U.s in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Innovation U.s is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Innovation and Leadership Values 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
- Innovation U.s 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 Innovation U.s is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Innovation and Leadership Values Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Innovation U.s 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 Raymond E. Miles 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Innovation U.s 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Innovation U.s in the sector have low bargaining power. Innovation and Leadership Values has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Innovation U.s to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Innovation U.s digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Innovation U.s 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 Innovation U.s 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.
High brand equity
– Innovation U.s has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Innovation U.s to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Innovation U.s 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 Innovation and Leadership Values HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Innovation and Leadership Values | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Innovation and Leadership Values are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Innovation U.s is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Innovation and Leadership Values can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Innovation U.s 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Innovation U.s 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation U.s 's lucrative customers.
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 Innovation U.s supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Innovation and Leadership Values, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Innovation U.s vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation U.s has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Innovation U.s 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Innovation and Leadership Values, it seems that the employees of Innovation U.s 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation and Leadership Values can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Innovation U.s is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Innovation and Leadership Values, 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Innovation and Leadership Values HBR case study mentions - Innovation U.s 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.
Opportunities Innovation and Leadership Values | 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 Innovation and Leadership Values are -
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 Innovation U.s to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Innovation U.s 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Innovation U.s 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, Innovation and Leadership Values, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Innovation U.s can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Innovation U.s operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Innovation U.s 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.
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. Innovation U.s can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Innovation U.s to increase its market reach. Innovation U.s will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
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 Innovation U.s in the consumer business. Now Innovation U.s can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Innovation U.s 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Innovation U.s 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Innovation U.s can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Innovation U.s 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Innovation U.s can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Innovation and Leadership Values 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.
Threats Innovation and Leadership Values External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Innovation and Leadership Values are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Innovation U.s 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 Innovation and Leadership Values .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Innovation U.s has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Innovation U.s 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Innovation U.s 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.
Increasing wage structure of Innovation U.s
– 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 Innovation U.s.
Environmental challenges
– Innovation U.s 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. Innovation U.s can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Innovation U.s 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Innovation U.s 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.
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. Innovation U.s 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.
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 Innovation U.s business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Innovation U.s 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.
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. Innovation U.s can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation and Leadership Values 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 Innovation U.s needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
