Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company
The founder of Lakkard Leather Company has headed the company for 24 years. He is proud of his business, and attributes much of its success to his own leadership style, which did not allow for anyone else's participation in decisions of substance. When he was badly injured in a car accident, his son stepped in and kept the business going. Without any intention to take over, the son altered the leadership and operations of the company in the space of a few months, so that by the time the founder returned, the company had changed and his role was significantly reduced. The son, in the meantime, grew to like his interim position and believed he did a better job than his father. Both men become locked in a power struggle; yet the company faced several key decisions that had to be taken in terms of expansion, product offering and sale opportunities.
Swot Analysis of "Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company" written by Simon Parker, Matthias Tietz includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lakkard Son facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lakkard Son, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lakkard Son 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lakkard Son
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 Lakkard Son
Strengths Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lakkard Son in Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lakkard Son has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lakkard Son 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Lakkard Son 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
– Lakkard Son is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Lakkard Son 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 Lakkard Son is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Lakkard Son
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lakkard Son does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Lakkard Son 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 Simon Parker, Matthias Tietz can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Lakkard Son to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Lakkard Son to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– Lakkard Son is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Lakkard Son 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lakkard Son 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
– Lakkard Son 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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 Lakkard Son 's lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lakkard Son is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Lakkard Son is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Lakkard Son needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Lakkard Son to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lakkard Son 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company, it seems that the employees of Lakkard Son 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company, is just above the industry average. Lakkard Son 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lakkard Son is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lakkard Son 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. Lakkard Son 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lakkard Son 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lakkard Son 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 - Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Simon Parker, Matthias Tietz suggests that, Lakkard Son 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.
Opportunities Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company | 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lakkard Son to increase its market reach. Lakkard Son 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lakkard Son to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lakkard Son 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Lakkard Son 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Developing new processes and practices
– Lakkard Son 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lakkard Son is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lakkard Son 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, Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Lakkard Son 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lakkard Son 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. Lakkard Son 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Lakkard Son can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Lakkard Son 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lakkard Son 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lakkard Son has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Lakkard Son to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company case study. Lakkard Son can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company are -
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 Lakkard Son business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Lakkard Son with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company, Lakkard Son 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 .
Increasing wage structure of Lakkard Son
– 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 Lakkard Son.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lakkard Son 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lakkard Son is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Lakkard Son 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lakkard Son 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lakkard Son has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lakkard Son needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lakkard Son 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.
Environmental challenges
– Lakkard Son 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. Lakkard Son can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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 Conflict Over Leadership and Succession in a Successful Family Business: The Lakkard Leather Company 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 Lakkard Son needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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