Case Study Description of 12 Essential Innovation Insights
Innovation is a perennial management challenge. That's why, for decades, MIT Sloan Management Review has been publishing new research and insights about innovation, from business school researchers as well as from leading business executives and consultants. For this article, the authors tapped into that knowledge base. They combed through the MIT SMR archives, looking for older articles with innovation insights that today's MIT SMR readers might have missed but that still remain timely and have wide relevance. The authors winnowed their list to 12 essential innovation articles from the MIT SMR archives. They distilled key concepts from those archival articles into 12 brief innovation insights contained in this article. The insights cover a range of innovation-related topics -from managing innovative employees to innovating in different ways -and draw on work by researchers from a number of universities, including Cambridge Judge Business School, Harvard Business School, London Business School, and the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Swot Analysis of "12 Essential Innovation Insights" written by Martha E Mangelsdorf, Bruce Posner includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Smr Mit facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in 12 Essential Innovation Insights case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the 12 Essential Innovation Insights casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of 12 Essential Innovation Insights
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in 12 Essential Innovation Insights case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Smr Mit, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Smr Mit 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in 12 Essential Innovation Insights case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Smr Mit
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Smr Mit
Strengths 12 Essential Innovation Insights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Smr Mit in 12 Essential Innovation Insights Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Smr Mit 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Smr Mit 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Smr Mit 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 Smr Mit is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in 12 Essential Innovation Insights Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Smr Mit has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Smr Mit 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Smr Mit is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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
– Smr Mit is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the 12 Essential Innovation Insights are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Smr Mit 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 Martha E Mangelsdorf, Bruce Posner 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Smr Mit in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Smr Mit digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Smr Mit 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Smr Mit is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in 12 Essential Innovation Insights Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Smr Mit
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Smr Mit does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses 12 Essential Innovation Insights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 12 Essential Innovation Insights are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Smr Mit 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 - 12 Essential Innovation Insights should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Smr Mit 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 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 Smr Mit supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - 12 Essential Innovation Insights, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Smr Mit vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study 12 Essential Innovation Insights, in the dynamic environment Smr Mit has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Smr Mit has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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 Smr Mit has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Smr Mit 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Smr Mit 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Smr Mit products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Smr Mit needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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 Smr Mit 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Smr Mit 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. Smr Mit 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Martha E Mangelsdorf, Bruce Posner suggests that, Smr Mit 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.
Opportunities 12 Essential Innovation Insights | 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Smr Mit can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Smr Mit can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Smr Mit 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Smr Mit can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Smr Mit can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Smr Mit can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Smr Mit 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Smr Mit in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Smr Mit 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Smr Mit to increase its market reach. Smr Mit 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Smr Mit 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Smr Mit to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Smr Mit 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, 12 Essential Innovation Insights, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Smr Mit can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Smr Mit has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Smr Mit to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the 12 Essential Innovation Insights case study. Smr Mit can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats 12 Essential Innovation Insights External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study 12 Essential Innovation Insights are -
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 Smr Mit in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study 12 Essential Innovation Insights, Smr Mit may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Smr Mit 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.
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.
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. Smr Mit needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Smr Mit.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Smr Mit 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Smr Mit with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Smr Mit 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Smr Mit is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Smr Mit
– 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 Smr Mit.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Smr Mit 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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 12 Essential Innovation Insights 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 Smr Mit needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
