Building to a Crescendo SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Building to a Crescendo
Examines the efforts of an early-stage venture capital firm to formalize processes and build a pyramidal organization in an industry dominated by informal, unpyramidal structures.
Swot Analysis of "Building to a Crescendo" written by Noam Wasserman, Vishesh Kumar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Crescendo Unpyramidal facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Building to a Crescendo case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational structure, Strategy execution, Venture capital and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Building to a Crescendo casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption,
wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Building to a Crescendo
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Building to a Crescendo case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crescendo Unpyramidal, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Building to a Crescendo can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Building to a Crescendo case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crescendo Unpyramidal
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Crescendo Unpyramidal
Strengths Building to a Crescendo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Crescendo Unpyramidal in Building to a Crescendo Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Building to a Crescendo - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Crescendo Unpyramidal is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Building to a Crescendo 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal in the sector have low bargaining power. Building to a Crescendo has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Crescendo Unpyramidal to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Crescendo Unpyramidal are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Building to a Crescendo HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Crescendo Unpyramidal
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Crescendo Unpyramidal does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Building to a Crescendo Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Crescendo Unpyramidal has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Building to a Crescendo 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Crescendo Unpyramidal is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Building to a Crescendo case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Building to a Crescendo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Building to a Crescendo are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Building to a Crescendo, it seems that the employees of Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crescendo Unpyramidal 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. Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Building to a Crescendo, is just above the industry average. Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Crescendo Unpyramidal, firm in the HBR case study Building to a Crescendo needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Crescendo Unpyramidal is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Building to a Crescendo can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Building to a Crescendo, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Crescendo Unpyramidal has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 - Building to a Crescendo should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Building to a Crescendo | 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 Building to a Crescendo are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Crescendo Unpyramidal can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Crescendo Unpyramidal operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Crescendo Unpyramidal can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Building to a Crescendo 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.
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 Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Crescendo Unpyramidal can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Crescendo Unpyramidal can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Crescendo Unpyramidal can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
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. Crescendo Unpyramidal can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
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 Crescendo Unpyramidal in the consumer business. Now Crescendo Unpyramidal can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Crescendo Unpyramidal in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Crescendo Unpyramidal is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Building to a Crescendo 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Building to a Crescendo External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Building to a Crescendo are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
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 Crescendo Unpyramidal 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. Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
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 Crescendo Unpyramidal in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Crescendo Unpyramidal in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Crescendo Unpyramidal with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Crescendo Unpyramidal
– 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Crescendo Unpyramidal 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Crescendo Unpyramidal is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Crescendo Unpyramidal 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Building to a Crescendo, Crescendo Unpyramidal may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Building to a Crescendo 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 Building to a Crescendo 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 Building to a Crescendo 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 Building to a Crescendo 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 Building to a Crescendo 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 Crescendo Unpyramidal needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.