Innermotion, a nonprofit organization founded in 1990, was a dance company that presented several dance/therapy performances and workshops a year on themes related to incest and sexual abuse. The organization originally consisted of an all-volunteer troupe of childhood sexual abuse survivors. It relied primarily on state and federal funding to maintain its operations. Grants from Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) were based on their evaluation of Innermotion as a provider of direct services to survivors of sexual assault. In June 2001, however, the Office of the Attorney General decided that Innermotion's presentations did not fit within the definition of "direct service." Innermotion lost a $60,000 grant from VAWA for performances across Florida and, at an executive education program for nonprofit managers, the organization received criticism that it lacked a clear priority and focus. This case describes the factors that Executive Director Sharon Daugherty wrestled with as she made plans for future activities and looked to secure the necessary resources to support Innermotion's activities.
Swot Analysis of "Innermotion (A)" written by Peter Laub, James A. Phills includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Innermotion Vawa facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Innermotion (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Psychology and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Innermotion (A) casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Innermotion (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Innermotion Vawa, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Innermotion (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Innermotion Vawa
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Innermotion Vawa
Strengths Innermotion (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Innermotion Vawa in Innermotion (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion Vawa is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Innermotion (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Innermotion Vawa is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Innermotion (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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Innermotion Vawa is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Innermotion (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Innermotion Vawa 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Innermotion Vawa is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion Vawa in the sector have low bargaining power. Innermotion (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Innermotion Vawa to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Innermotion Vawa has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Innermotion (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.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Innermotion Vawa digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Innermotion Vawa 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Innermotion Vawa has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Innermotion Vawa 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion (A) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Innermotion Vawa 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.
Weaknesses Innermotion (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Innermotion (A) are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Innermotion Vawa products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Innermotion Vawa needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Innermotion Vawa 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Innermotion Vawa, firm in the HBR case study Innermotion (A) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Innermotion Vawa 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. Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion Vawa 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Innermotion Vawa 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 - Innermotion (A) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Innermotion (A) 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 Innermotion Vawa 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Innermotion Vawa is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Innermotion Vawa needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Innermotion Vawa to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion (A), in the dynamic environment Innermotion Vawa has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Innermotion Vawa has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Innermotion Vawa 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.
Opportunities Innermotion (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 Innermotion (A) are -
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 Innermotion Vawa 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion (A) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Innermotion Vawa to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion Vawa can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Innermotion Vawa 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Innermotion Vawa to increase its market reach. Innermotion Vawa will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Innermotion Vawa 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. Innermotion Vawa 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Innermotion Vawa 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Innermotion Vawa can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Innermotion Vawa has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Innermotion Vawa to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Innermotion (A) case study. Innermotion Vawa can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Innermotion Vawa can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Innermotion (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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Innermotion Vawa is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Innermotion (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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Innermotion Vawa can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Innermotion (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Innermotion (A) are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Innermotion Vawa in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Innermotion Vawa is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Innermotion Vawa 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.
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. Innermotion Vawa needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Innermotion Vawa
– 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 Innermotion Vawa.
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. Innermotion Vawa 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.
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 Innermotion Vawa.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Innermotion Vawa has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Innermotion Vawa needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Innermotion Vawa can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Innermotion (A), Innermotion Vawa may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Innermotion Vawa 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 Innermotion (A) .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Innermotion (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 Innermotion (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 Innermotion (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 Innermotion (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 Innermotion (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 Innermotion Vawa needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
