On December 8th 2013, as Dr. David Keith was leaving the set of the Colbert Show, he couldn't help but replay the interview over and over in his mind. Did he actually get his point of view on solar geoengineering across or had he just added to the stereotype that he was more of a 'mad scientist' than a scholar? Science knew, beyond doubt, that volcanoes cooled the planet by forcing sulfates high into the stratosphere. This cooling effect had been recorded in history over and over again. The question that Keith and many other climate scientists wanted to answer was: could humanity learn how to design, deploy, and manage similar cooling effects to manage the threats from climate change?
Swot Analysis of "Solar Geoengineering" written by Joseph B. Lassiter, Stephanie Puzio includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Geoengineering Cooling facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Solar Geoengineering case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Design, Entrepreneurship, Financial management, Organizational culture, Sustainability, Technology and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Solar Geoengineering casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, 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%, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Solar Geoengineering
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Solar Geoengineering case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Geoengineering Cooling, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Geoengineering Cooling 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 Solar Geoengineering can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Solar Geoengineering case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Geoengineering Cooling
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 Geoengineering Cooling
Strengths Solar Geoengineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Geoengineering Cooling in Solar Geoengineering Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Geoengineering Cooling is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Solar Geoengineering 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 Geoengineering Cooling in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Geoengineering Cooling 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 Solar Geoengineering HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Geoengineering Cooling is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Solar Geoengineering 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.
Training and development
– Geoengineering Cooling has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Solar Geoengineering 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.
Analytics focus
– Geoengineering Cooling 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 Joseph B. Lassiter, Stephanie Puzio 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Solar Geoengineering firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Geoengineering Cooling to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Geoengineering Cooling to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Geoengineering Cooling is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Solar Geoengineering Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Geoengineering Cooling
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Geoengineering Cooling does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Geoengineering Cooling 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 Geoengineering Cooling is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Solar Geoengineering Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Geoengineering Cooling 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 Geoengineering Cooling in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Solar Geoengineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Solar Geoengineering are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Geoengineering Cooling needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Solar Geoengineering, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Solar Geoengineering, in the dynamic environment Geoengineering Cooling has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Geoengineering Cooling has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Geoengineering Cooling products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Geoengineering Cooling needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Geoengineering Cooling is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Geoengineering Cooling needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Geoengineering Cooling to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Solar Geoengineering HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Geoengineering Cooling has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Solar Geoengineering 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 Solar Geoengineering can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Geoengineering Cooling is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Solar Geoengineering HBR case study mentions - Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Geoengineering Cooling 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 - Solar Geoengineering should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Solar Geoengineering | 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 Solar Geoengineering are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Geoengineering Cooling in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Finance & Accounting segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Geoengineering Cooling can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Geoengineering Cooling 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, Solar Geoengineering, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Geoengineering Cooling can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Geoengineering Cooling can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Geoengineering Cooling 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. Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Geoengineering Cooling 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 Geoengineering Cooling to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Geoengineering Cooling 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.
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 Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Threats Solar Geoengineering External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Solar Geoengineering are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Geoengineering Cooling in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Increasing wage structure of Geoengineering Cooling
– 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 Geoengineering Cooling.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Geoengineering Cooling with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Geoengineering Cooling 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. Geoengineering Cooling can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Geoengineering Cooling has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Geoengineering Cooling 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Geoengineering Cooling 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 Finance & Accounting 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 Geoengineering Cooling business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Geoengineering Cooling 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.
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. Geoengineering Cooling needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Solar Geoengineering 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 Solar Geoengineering 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 Solar Geoengineering 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 Solar Geoengineering 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 Solar Geoengineering 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 Geoengineering Cooling needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
