Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance
Managers need to think creatively about ways to improve organizational performance. We explore one such tool. Popular business books that offer unique takes on important topics can serve as an effective tool to engage workers and lead them to new understandings. In particular, we discuss the key insights for organizations offered by ten classic and popular bestselling business books. Each one offers enduring lessons of value for employees interested in helping their organizations become more successful.
Authors :: Shane W. Reid, Jeremy C. Short, David Ketchen Jr.
Swot Analysis of "Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance" written by Shane W. Reid, Jeremy C. Short, David Ketchen Jr. includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Books Popular facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Books Popular, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Books Popular 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Books Popular
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Books Popular
Strengths Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Books Popular in Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Books Popular has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Books Popular 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
- Books Popular 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 Books Popular is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Books Popular is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 brand equity
– Books Popular has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Books Popular to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Books Popular to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Books Popular to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Books Popular 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 Shane W. Reid, Jeremy C. Short, David Ketchen Jr. 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Books Popular is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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.
Organizational Resilience of Books Popular
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Books Popular does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Books Popular in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Books Popular 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 Books Popular in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Books Popular in the sector have low bargaining power. Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Books Popular to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Books Popular products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Books Popular 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, Books Popular is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Books Popular 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance, is just above the industry average. Books Popular 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 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 Books Popular supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Books Popular vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance HBR case study mentions - Books Popular 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 Books Popular has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Books Popular 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance, in the dynamic environment Books Popular has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Books Popular has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Books Popular is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance | 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance are -
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 Books Popular in the consumer business. Now Books Popular can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Books Popular 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. Books Popular 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
– Books Popular 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Books Popular to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Books Popular 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Books Popular 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.
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. Books Popular can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Books Popular 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Books Popular can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Books Popular in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Books Popular 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Books Popular 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Books Popular 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 Books Popular to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Books Popular 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.
Threats Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance are -
Increasing wage structure of Books Popular
– 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 Books Popular.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Books Popular is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Books Popular 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Books Popular has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Books Popular needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Books Popular 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.
Environmental challenges
– Books Popular 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. Books Popular can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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. Books Popular 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Books Popular can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Books Popular with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Books Popular in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Books Popular 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance .
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 Books Popular in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 Reading the Room: Leveraging Popular Business Books to Enhance Organizational Performance 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 Books Popular needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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