Swot Analysis of "Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms" written by Ashish Nanda includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Firms Law facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competition and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices,
technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Firms Law, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Firms Law 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Firms Law
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Firms Law
Strengths Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Firms Law in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Firms Law 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Firms Law 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Firms Law has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Firms Law 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Firms Law 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Firms Law to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Firms Law to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Firms Law is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Firms Law is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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.
Learning organization
- Firms Law 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 Firms Law is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Firms Law in the sector have low bargaining power. Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Firms Law to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Firms Law has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Firms Law 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 Firms Law in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Firms Law 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 Ashish Nanda 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.
Weaknesses Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms, it seems that the employees of Firms Law 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms HBR case study mentions - Firms Law 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Firms Law 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Firms Law is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Firms Law needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Firms Law to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Firms Law 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 - Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Firms Law 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms, is just above the industry average. Firms Law 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Firms Law 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Firms Law products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Firms Law needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Firms Law, firm in the HBR case study Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms | 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Firms Law can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Firms Law 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Firms Law can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Firms Law can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Firms Law operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Firms Law 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Firms Law to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Firms Law 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 Firms Law can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Firms Law can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Firms Law in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Technology & Operations segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Firms Law 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.
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 Firms Law 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Firms Law 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 Technology & Operations segment.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Firms Law 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.
Threats Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Firms Law 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms .
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Firms Law 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 Technology & Operations industry regulations.
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 Firms Law.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Firms Law has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Firms Law needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Technology & Operations 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.
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. Firms Law 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Firms Law with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Firms Law in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations 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 Firms Law
– 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 Firms Law.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Firms Law 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.
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. Firms Law needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Firms Law 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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 Competition Between the Professions: Law Firms vs. Accounting Firms 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 Firms Law needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.