TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact
Founder of Trade Without Borders (TWB), Joseph Fernandez, set up the organization purely for charitable purposes. TWB's mission is to extend trading services to non-government organizations (NGOs) in developing regions of the world. To execute the mission in a financially viable and sustainable manner, Joseph was thinking to establish a base of operations in Hong Kong, which was close to Chinese manufacturers of the products that were traded. A lot of questions came to Joseph's mind: what type of organization would TWB incorporate? And prior to this, what would be the strategy and daily operations of the proposed Hong Kong entity? How could TWB ensure the proposed operations would contribute to instead of hindering the primary social mission of the organization?
Swot Analysis of "TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact" written by Ronald Lau, Joseph Santana Fernandez includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Twb Joseph facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, Marketing, Operations management, Product development, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, Sustainability and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
technology disruption, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Twb Joseph, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Twb Joseph 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Twb Joseph
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 Twb Joseph
Strengths TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Twb Joseph in TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Twb Joseph 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 Twb Joseph is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Twb Joseph is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Twb Joseph 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.
Analytics focus
– Twb Joseph 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 Ronald Lau, Joseph Santana Fernandez 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Twb Joseph digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Twb Joseph 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Twb Joseph to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Twb Joseph to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Twb Joseph has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Twb Joseph to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Twb Joseph 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 Twb Joseph in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Twb Joseph is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Twb Joseph has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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
– Twb Joseph 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Twb Joseph is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Twb Joseph 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Twb Joseph 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. Twb Joseph 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Twb Joseph 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact, is just above the industry average. Twb Joseph 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Twb Joseph 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 - TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Twb Joseph 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, Twb Joseph 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Twb Joseph is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact, it seems that the employees of Twb Joseph 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.
Opportunities TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact | 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Twb Joseph 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 Global Business segment.
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 Twb Joseph 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Twb Joseph 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. Twb Joseph 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Twb Joseph can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Twb Joseph 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Twb Joseph can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Twb Joseph operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Twb Joseph is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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.
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. Twb Joseph can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Twb Joseph 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Twb Joseph 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, TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Twb Joseph has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Twb Joseph to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact case study. Twb Joseph can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Twb Joseph can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Twb Joseph 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.
Threats TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Twb Joseph 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact, Twb Joseph 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 .
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 Twb Joseph.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Twb Joseph 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Twb Joseph 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Twb Joseph 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Twb Joseph 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.
Increasing wage structure of Twb Joseph
– 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 Twb Joseph.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Twb Joseph 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. Twb Joseph can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
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 Twb Joseph business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Twb Joseph 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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 TWB: Alternative Paths to Creating Social Impact 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 Twb Joseph needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.