Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
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
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 - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, etc
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 -
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.
Training and development
– Humor Gurian has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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.
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.
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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Humor Gurian has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Humor Gurian 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.
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.
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Humor Gurian is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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.
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.
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.
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 -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times 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 Humor Gurian 's lucrative customers.
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.
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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Humor Gurian 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Humor Gurian 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Humor Gurian is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Humor Gurian, firm in the HBR case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Humor Gurian is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Humor Gurian needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Humor Gurian to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 -
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Humor Gurian 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.
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.
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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Humor Gurian 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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Humor Gurian 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Humor Gurian 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.
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 -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Humor Gurian 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.
Environmental challenges
– Humor Gurian 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. Humor Gurian can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times, Humor Gurian 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 .
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 .
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 Humor Gurian.
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Humor Gurian with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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. Humor Gurian 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Humor Gurian has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Humor Gurian needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
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.
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.
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.
Feel free to connect with us if you need business research.
You can download Excel Template of Case Study Solution & Analysis of Humor: Serious Business - Caselet Studies: Eric Gurian: Humor Ignites Positive Action in Dark Times
