The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development
While income inequality between countries has declined significantly over the past 20 years, it has grown markedly within countries. A combination of technological change, global integration, domestic deregulation and immigration has been driving major changes in labour markets in most advanced countries-resulting in pressure on median wages and widespread insecurity. The authors-from the World Economic Forum-describe their 'framework for inclusive growth' and the Inclusive Development Index, which measures countries on three categories of KPIs, including Adjusted Net Savings; Median Household Income; Poverty Rate; and Healthy Life Expectancy.
Authors :: R. Samans, J. Blanke, G. Corrigan, M. Drzeniek Hanouz
Swot Analysis of "The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development" written by R. Samans, J. Blanke, G. Corrigan, M. Drzeniek Hanouz includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Inclusive Median facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Social responsibility and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Inclusive Median, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Inclusive Median 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 The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Inclusive Median
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Inclusive Median
Strengths The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Inclusive Median in The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Inclusive Median 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
– Inclusive Median has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Inclusive Median to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Inclusive Median 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Inclusive Median to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Inclusive Median to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Inclusive Median 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 R. Samans, J. Blanke, G. Corrigan, M. Drzeniek Hanouz 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Inclusive Median is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Inclusive Median in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Inclusive Median is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Inclusive Median in the sector have low bargaining power. The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Inclusive Median to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Inclusive Median has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Inclusive Median 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.
Learning organization
- Inclusive Median 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 Inclusive Median is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Inclusive Median has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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.
Weaknesses The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Inclusive Median 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. Inclusive Median 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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 The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development HBR case study mentions - Inclusive Median 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development, is just above the industry average. Inclusive Median 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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 Inclusive Median has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Inclusive Median 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Inclusive Median 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Inclusive Median 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development, in the dynamic environment Inclusive Median has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Inclusive Median has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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 Inclusive Median 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Inclusive Median 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.
Opportunities The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development | 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 The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Inclusive Median can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Inclusive Median 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, The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Inclusive Median is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Inclusive Median 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Inclusive Median in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Inclusive Median 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.
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. Inclusive Median can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Inclusive Median can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Inclusive Median to increase its market reach. Inclusive Median 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Inclusive Median 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Inclusive Median can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business 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.
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 Inclusive Median in the consumer business. Now Inclusive Median can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Inclusive Median can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development are -
Environmental challenges
– Inclusive Median 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. Inclusive Median can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Inclusive Median 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.
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 Inclusive Median.
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
– Inclusive Median 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 Global Business industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Inclusive Median 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.
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 Inclusive Median business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Inclusive Median has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Inclusive Median needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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.
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 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. Inclusive Median needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Inclusive Median in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Inclusive Median can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development, Inclusive Median may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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 The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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 The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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 The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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 The Challenge of the Century: Inclusive Growth and Development 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 Inclusive Median needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.