Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
In analyzing the many stereotypes surrounding Arab Middle Eastern women's employment issues, this article focuses on women's labor participation and their career development in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. We first unpack the stereotypes by demonstrating the progress of women's labor participation in the region. We then uncover the critical challenges of a high female unemployment rate during GCC countries' economic transformation in the non-oil sectors. We discuss the factors contributing to low women's labor participation and the difficulty of career advancement for women, including (1) norms and traditions; (2) job opportunities and workplace discrimination; and (3) role models, mentors, and networking. Finally, we provide recommendations on how to improve women's labor participation by involving the public and private sectors, deploying technology, and engaging in multilevel mindset change.
Swot Analysis of "Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries" written by Janet Y. Murray, Yingying Zhang-Zhang includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Women's Participation facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Gender, Innovation, Intellectual property and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Women's Participation, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Women's Participation 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Women's Participation
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Women's Participation
Strengths Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Women's Participation in Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Women's Participation 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
– Women's Participation 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Women's Participation is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Women's Participation 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 Janet Y. Murray, Yingying Zhang-Zhang 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Women's Participation 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Women's Participation to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Women's Participation to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Women's Participation is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Women's Participation 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 Women's Participation 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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.
Learning organization
- Women's Participation 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 Women's Participation is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Women's Participation is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Women's Participation in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Women's Participation products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Women's Participation needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Women's Participation supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Women's Participation vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Women's Participation 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. Women's Participation 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Janet Y. Murray, Yingying Zhang-Zhang suggests that, Women's Participation 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries HBR case study mentions - Women's Participation 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, in the dynamic environment Women's Participation has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Women's Participation has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Women's Participation, firm in the HBR case study Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, is just above the industry average. Women's Participation 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Women's Participation 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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 Women's Participation 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Women's Participation 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.
Opportunities Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries | 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Women's Participation in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Women's Participation 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Women's Participation to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Women's Participation 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Women's Participation 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Women's Participation can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Women's Participation in the consumer business. Now Women's Participation can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Women's Participation can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Women's Participation 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Women's Participation 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Buying journey improvements
– Women's Participation can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Women's Participation 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Women's Participation can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Women's Participation operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Women's Participation can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Women's Participation has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Women's Participation needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Women's Participation 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Women's Participation 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.
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. Women's Participation 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.
Environmental challenges
– Women's Participation 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. Women's Participation can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Women's Participation 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries .
Increasing wage structure of Women's Participation
– 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 Women's Participation.
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. Women's Participation needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Women's Participation in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Women's Participation 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
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 Women's Participation business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Women's Participation.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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 Insights on Women's Labor Participation in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries 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 Women's Participation needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
