Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman
In this interview the renowned psychologist and Emotional Intelligence (EI) pioneer describes the importance of focus for leadership excellence. He explains in detail the three types of focus that leaders must possess to perform optimally: self-awareness, awareness of others and outer focus. Focus, he argues, is a pre-requisite for Emotional Intelligence.
Swot Analysis of "Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman" written by Daniel Goleman, Karen Christensen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Emotional Focus facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Emotional Focus, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Emotional Focus 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Emotional Focus
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 Emotional Focus
Strengths Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Emotional Focus in Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Emotional Focus has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Emotional Focus is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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.
Organizational Resilience of Emotional Focus
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Emotional Focus does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Emotional Focus is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Emotional Focus 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Emotional Focus 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 Emotional Focus in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Emotional Focus 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Emotional Focus 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Emotional Focus has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Emotional Focus to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Emotional Focus digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Emotional Focus 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Emotional Focus 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman, is just above the industry average. Emotional Focus 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Emotional Focus products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Emotional Focus needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Emotional Focus has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Emotional Focus even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Emotional Focus has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Daniel Goleman, Karen Christensen suggests that, Emotional Focus 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Emotional Focus is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Emotional Focus supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Emotional Focus vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Emotional Focus, firm in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Emotional Focus 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Emotional Focus 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.
Opportunities Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman | 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman are -
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 Emotional Focus in the consumer business. Now Emotional Focus can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Emotional Focus 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Emotional Focus 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Emotional Focus to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Emotional Focus can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Emotional Focus 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 Emotional Focus to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Emotional Focus can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Emotional Focus can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Emotional Focus operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
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. Emotional Focus can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Emotional Focus 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Emotional Focus 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, Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Emotional Focus 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Emotional Focus can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Strategy & Execution segment.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Emotional Focus has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Emotional Focus to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman case study. Emotional Focus can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman are -
Regulatory challenges
– Emotional Focus 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Emotional Focus has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Emotional Focus 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.
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.
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. Emotional Focus can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Emotional Focus 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Emotional Focus is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Emotional Focus 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Emotional Focus 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 Emotional Focus
– 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 Emotional Focus.
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 Emotional Focus 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. Emotional Focus needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Emotional Focus with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Daniel Goleman 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 Emotional Focus needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
