Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision
Ethics, in addition to being about principles and consequences, is about character: the individual traits and qualities that define what kind of person someone is and who they hope to become. This technical note poses a series of questions to help readers produce a vision of their character that can be shaped as they grow and progress as individuals and leaders.
Swot Analysis of "Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision" written by Jared Harris includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Character Ethics facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Leadership and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Character Ethics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Character Ethics 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Character Ethics
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 Character Ethics
Strengths Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Character Ethics in Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Character Ethics is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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 Character Ethics 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Character Ethics digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Character Ethics 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
– Character Ethics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Character Ethics 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Character Ethics is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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.
Analytics focus
– Character Ethics 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 Jared Harris 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Character Ethics is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Character Ethics in the sector have low bargaining power. Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Character Ethics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Character Ethics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Character Ethics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Character Ethics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Character Ethics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Character Ethics 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision are -
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 Character Ethics supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Character Ethics vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jared Harris suggests that, Character Ethics 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Character Ethics 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Character Ethics 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 Character Ethics, firm in the HBR case study Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Character Ethics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Character Ethics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Character Ethics to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Character Ethics 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Character Ethics 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. Character Ethics 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Character Ethics is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Character Ethics 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 - Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision | 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Character Ethics 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
– Character Ethics 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Character Ethics can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Character Ethics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Character Ethics 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Character Ethics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Character Ethics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Character Ethics in the consumer business. Now Character Ethics can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Character Ethics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Character Ethics 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Character Ethics in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Character Ethics 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 Character Ethics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Character Ethics 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. Character Ethics 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Character Ethics 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.
Threats Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Character Ethics 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.
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. Character Ethics 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Character Ethics 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Character Ethics 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Character Ethics with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Character Ethics 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.
Environmental challenges
– Character Ethics 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. Character Ethics can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Character Ethics 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.
Increasing wage structure of Character Ethics
– 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 Character Ethics.
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 Character Ethics business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Character Ethics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Character Ethics 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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 Making Ethics Personal: Character and Your Personal Vision 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 Character Ethics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
