Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A)
In January 2018, a family business advising team entered a seemingly straightforward contract with members of the Graham family, who were planning to transition their business to the next generation. The first and second generations, who founded and grew their business into a portfolio of 50 grocery store franchises across the eastern United States, were concerned about the capacity and interest of the next generation in continuing the success of the family business. None of the five cousins in this new generation had experience pertaining to the family business, and there was uncertainty about the structural changes inherent in the transition. At first glance, the problem appeared to be about transition planning, but the advising team soon learned that transition was only the surface issue. The advising process uncovered a very dysfunctional family with deeper concerns. Communication problems, borne from the culture of conflict avoidance that typified the second generation's upbringing, needed to be addressed before the family could face any transition planning with confidence. This case is intended to be used with "Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (B)," 9B18M048. "Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A)" should be assigned prior to class. "Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (B)" should be distributed in class following discussion of the (A) case. Vanessa M. Strike is affiliated with University of British Columbia.
Swot Analysis of "Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A)" written by Vanessa M. Strike, Dennis Ma includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Advising Pandora's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Advising Pandora's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Advising Pandora's 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Advising Pandora's
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 Advising Pandora's
Strengths Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Advising Pandora's in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Advising Pandora's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Advising Pandora's 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Advising Pandora's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Advising Pandora's 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.
Learning organization
- Advising Pandora's 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 Advising Pandora's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Advising Pandora's 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 Vanessa M. Strike, Dennis Ma 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Advising Pandora's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Advising Pandora's 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Advising Pandora's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Advising Pandora's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Advising Pandora's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Advising Pandora's in the sector have low bargaining power. Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Advising Pandora's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Advising Pandora's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Advising Pandora's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Advising Pandora's are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Weaknesses Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Advising Pandora's 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. Advising Pandora's 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A), it seems that the employees of Advising Pandora's 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Advising Pandora's 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Advising Pandora's 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) HBR case study mentions - Advising Pandora's 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A), in the dynamic environment Advising Pandora's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Advising Pandora's 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 Advising Pandora's, firm in the HBR case study Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Advising Pandora's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Advising Pandora's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Advising Pandora's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Advising Pandora's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Advising Pandora's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Vanessa M. Strike, Dennis Ma suggests that, Advising Pandora's 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A), is just above the industry average. Advising Pandora's 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.
Opportunities Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) | 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Advising Pandora's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Advising Pandora's 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 Advising Pandora's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Advising Pandora's 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Advising Pandora's 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.
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. Advising Pandora's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Advising Pandora's 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 Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Advising Pandora's 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. Advising Pandora's 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Advising Pandora's 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Advising Pandora's 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.
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 Advising Pandora's in the consumer business. Now Advising Pandora's 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. Advising Pandora's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Advising Pandora's 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, Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Advising Pandora's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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.
Threats Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Advising Pandora's 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Advising Pandora's 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Advising Pandora's 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A), Advising Pandora's may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
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 Advising Pandora's 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, Advising Pandora's 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) .
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. Advising Pandora's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Advising Pandora's 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 Advising Pandora's 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Advising Pandora's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Advising Pandora's 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Advising Pandora's 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. Advising Pandora's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Advising Pandora's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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 Advising the Family Firm: Opening Pandora's Box (A) 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 Advising Pandora's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
