How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee
In mid-2013, the Lee family, which owned the Hong Kong-based food and health product giant Lee Kum Kee (LKK), struggled with how best to increase involvement of the fifth generation (G5), the children of the company's current fourth-generation (G4) senior executives and governance leaders. Only two of the fourteen G5 members had joined the company, and few had expressed interest in further involvement, including in the multiple learning and development programs the business offered, such as a mentoring program. Many of the G5 cousins had expressed little interest in business careers in general, and none of them currently was serving as an LKK intern. G4 members observed that their children were busy with family obligations, hobbies, and emerging careers outside the business. G5's lack of interest in business and governance roles was part of a growing pattern of low family engagement in general, exhibited by the cancellation of recent family retreats (once an annual tradition) because of apathy and some underlying conflict. A history of splits among past generations of the Lee family regarding business leadership made the engagement issue even more meaningful and critical. Students will consider the challenge from the point of view of G4 family members David Lee, chairman of the family's Family Office, and his sister, Elizabeth Mok, who ran the Family Learning and Development Center. They and their three siblings saw engaging the next generation as a top priority, one related to key concepts including family-business continuity, generational engagement and empowerment, succession, emotional ownership, and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation.
Authors :: John L. Ward, Carol Adler Zsolnay, Sachin Waikar
Swot Analysis of "How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee" written by John L. Ward, Carol Adler Zsolnay, Sachin Waikar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that G5 Family facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Motivating people, Organizational culture, Succession planning and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the G5 Family, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which G5 Family 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of G5 Family
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 G5 Family
Strengths How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of G5 Family in How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– G5 Family is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– G5 Family 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee - 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
- G5 Family 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 G5 Family is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– G5 Family has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled G5 Family to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of G5 Family in the sector have low bargaining power. How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps G5 Family to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– G5 Family 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– G5 Family has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. G5 Family 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– G5 Family is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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.
Organizational Resilience of G5 Family
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that G5 Family does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– G5 Family 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 John L. Ward, Carol Adler Zsolnay, Sachin Waikar 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that G5 Family 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled G5 Family to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped G5 Family to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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 G5 Family 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
G5 Family 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee, is just above the industry average. G5 Family 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee, it seems that the employees of G5 Family 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, G5 Family is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– G5 Family 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, G5 Family 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee, in the dynamic environment G5 Family has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. G5 Family has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John L. Ward, Carol Adler Zsolnay, Sachin Waikar suggests that, G5 Family 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of G5 Family is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. G5 Family needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help G5 Family to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as G5 Family is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee | 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for G5 Family 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 G5 Family to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. G5 Family can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. G5 Family can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, G5 Family is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects G5 Family can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, G5 Family 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, G5 Family can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that G5 Family operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Loyalty marketing
– G5 Family 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
– G5 Family can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– G5 Family 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at G5 Family 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.
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. G5 Family 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. G5 Family 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, G5 Family 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, How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee are -
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on G5 Family 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, G5 Family 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– G5 Family has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, G5 Family 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.
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. G5 Family can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 G5 Family.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for G5 Family in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
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. G5 Family 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.
Regulatory challenges
– G5 Family 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents G5 Family with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 G5 Family business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of G5 Family
– 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 G5 Family.
Environmental challenges
– G5 Family 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. G5 Family can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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 How to Motivate the Fifth Generation? Balancing Engagement and Entitlement at Lee Kum Kee 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 G5 Family needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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