Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India
In 1993, the Indian government approved a constitutional amendment that would forever change the face of rural politics. The landmark legislation mandated that village councils-traditionally the bastion of higher caste males-hold regular elections and reserve one-third of the seats for women. India, however, was not alone in its efforts to increase women's representation in elected government. By 2012, half the world's countries had adopted political quotas for women. Despite the rapid rise of political quota systems there was remarkably little rigorous evidence on their effectiveness. Did more female leaders result in more gender equal societies? Could a mandatory change in the balance of power reduce discrimination against women? The design of the Indian quota system gave social scientists a unique opportunity to examine the causal impact of gender quotas. This case profiles findings from the body of rigorous evidence on the impacts of female political quotas in India-with potential lessons for governments and businesses everywhere. Case number 1996.0
Swot Analysis of "Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India" written by Rohini Pande, Anjani Datla includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Quotas Women facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Policy and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Quotas Women, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Quotas Women 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 Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Quotas Women
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Quotas Women
Strengths Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Quotas Women in Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Quotas Women 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 Quotas Women 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 Quotas Women in the sector have low bargaining power. Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Quotas Women to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Quotas Women
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Quotas Women does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Quotas Women 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 Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Quotas Women 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 Quotas Women is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Quotas Women 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 recruit top talent
– Quotas Women is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Quotas Women 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 Rohini Pande, Anjani Datla 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
– Quotas Women is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Quotas Women digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Quotas Women 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Quotas Women is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Quotas Women to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Quotas Women to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India, in the dynamic environment Quotas Women has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Quotas Women has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Quotas Women supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Quotas Women vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Quotas Women 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Quotas Women is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Rohini Pande, Anjani Datla suggests that, Quotas Women 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Quotas Women, firm in the HBR case study Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India, it seems that the employees of Quotas Women 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Quotas Women 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. Quotas Women 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India HBR case study mentions - Quotas Women 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Quotas Women 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Quotas Women 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.
Opportunities Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India | 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 Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Quotas Women can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Quotas Women can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Quotas Women 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Quotas Women can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Quotas Women 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. Quotas Women 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Quotas Women 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Quotas Women 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Quotas Women can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Quotas Women to increase its market reach. Quotas Women 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Quotas Women can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Quotas Women operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
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 Quotas Women 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Quotas Women is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Quotas Women can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Global Business segment.
Threats Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Quotas Women 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Quotas Women 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Quotas Women has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Quotas Women needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Quotas Women can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Quotas Women 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Quotas Women 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
– Quotas Women needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Global Business industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Quotas Women 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. Quotas Women can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Quotas Women with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Quotas Women.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Quotas Women is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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 Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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 Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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 Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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 Women as Leaders: Lessons from Political Quotas in India 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 Quotas Women needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.