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Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times


This set of Humor: Serious Business "Caselet Studies" follows three visionaries (SPANX CEO Sara Blakely, Deloitte Partner Brian Fugere, and Friend of a Friend Productions CEO/Founder Eric Gurian) as they examine their strategic use of humor in the business world. Sara Blakely (in Using Humor to Launch a Company) explores how humor drove her revolutionary startup SPANX from a one-person startup to global phenomenon. Brian Fugere (in Bigger Than Bullsh*t) analyzes how humor helped infuse humanity back to the consulting world. Eric Gurian (in Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times) discusses how humor engaged a community in a serious issue and moved people to action.

Authors :: Jennifer Aaker, Naomi Bagdonas, Peter A. Seibert, Eric Gurian

Topics :: Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Tags :: Leadership, Marketing, Organizational culture, Strategy, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times" written by Jennifer Aaker, Naomi Bagdonas, Peter A. Seibert, Eric Gurian includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Humor Gurian facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Marketing, Organizational culture, Strategy and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Humor Gurian, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Humor Gurian 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Humor Gurian
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 Humor Gurian




Strengths Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Humor Gurian in Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times Harvard Business Review case study are -

Strong track record of project management

– Humor Gurian is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

High brand equity

– Humor Gurian has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Humor Gurian to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Learning organization

- Humor Gurian 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 Humor Gurian is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry

– Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Humor Gurian to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Humor Gurian to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Humor Gurian is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Humor Gurian 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Humor Gurian 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Humor Gurian 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 Humor Gurian digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Humor Gurian 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.

Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field

– Humor Gurian 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 Humor Gurian in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Organizational Resilience of Humor Gurian

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Humor Gurian does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Humor Gurian 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.






Weaknesses Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times are -

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Humor Gurian 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.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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 Humor Gurian has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

High bargaining power of channel partners

– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jennifer Aaker, Naomi Bagdonas, Peter A. Seibert, Eric Gurian suggests that, Humor Gurian 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.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times, it seems that the employees of Humor Gurian 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times, is just above the industry average. Humor Gurian 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Humor Gurian 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Humor Gurian 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 - Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times HBR case study mentions - Humor Gurian 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.

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 Humor Gurian supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Humor Gurian vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Lack of clear differentiation of Humor Gurian products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Humor Gurian needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Humor Gurian is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.




Opportunities Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times | 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Humor Gurian can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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. Humor Gurian 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. Humor Gurian 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Humor Gurian 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Humor Gurian 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 Humor Gurian to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Humor Gurian has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Humor Gurian to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times case study. Humor Gurian can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Humor Gurian to increase its market reach. Humor Gurian 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Humor Gurian can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Humor Gurian is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Humor Gurian can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Humor Gurian 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Humor Gurian 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Humor Gurian to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Humor Gurian can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Humor Gurian operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Humor Gurian 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.




Threats Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times are -

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Humor Gurian 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Humor Gurian 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times .

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Humor Gurian 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. Humor Gurian needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Humor Gurian is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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 Humor Gurian in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Humor Gurian can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Increasing wage structure of Humor Gurian

– 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 Humor Gurian.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Humor Gurian in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.

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.

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 Humor Gurian business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Regulatory challenges

– Humor Gurian 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.

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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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 Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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 Humor Gurian needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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