The case explores the entrepreneurial journey of Oprah Winfrey, examining how she built an audience for one of the most successful television shows in history; how she created the company, Harpo Productions, that produces that show as well as other media offerings; how she leads and manages her organization; and how she has chosen to use the authority and other fruits of success to make a significant social as well as business contribution. The case uses interviews with Winfrey and her team to analyze how the business model and strategy of the company has changed-in the context of a dynamic marketplace, rapid technological innovation and Winfrey's own evolving conception of her purpose and path.
Authors :: Nancy F. Koehn, Erica Helms, Katherine Miller, Rachel K. Wilcox
Swot Analysis of "Oprah Winfrey" written by Nancy F. Koehn, Erica Helms, Katherine Miller, Rachel K. Wilcox includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Winfrey Oprah facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Oprah Winfrey case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Organizational culture, Social responsibility and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Oprah Winfrey casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Oprah Winfrey case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Winfrey Oprah, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Winfrey Oprah 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 Oprah Winfrey can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Oprah Winfrey case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Winfrey Oprah
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 Winfrey Oprah
Strengths Oprah Winfrey | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Winfrey Oprah in Oprah Winfrey Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Winfrey Oprah 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Winfrey Oprah digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Winfrey Oprah 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Oprah Winfrey 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Winfrey Oprah in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Winfrey Oprah 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 Winfrey Oprah in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Winfrey Oprah 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 Winfrey Oprah is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Oprah Winfrey Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Winfrey Oprah 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 Oprah Winfrey - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Winfrey Oprah 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 Nancy F. Koehn, Erica Helms, Katherine Miller, Rachel K. Wilcox 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Winfrey Oprah in the sector have low bargaining power. Oprah Winfrey has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Winfrey Oprah to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Winfrey Oprah
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Winfrey Oprah does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Winfrey Oprah has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Oprah Winfrey 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Winfrey Oprah is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Oprah Winfrey are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Oprah Winfrey | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Oprah Winfrey are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Oprah Winfrey, 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Winfrey Oprah 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Winfrey Oprah is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Winfrey Oprah needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Winfrey Oprah to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Oprah Winfrey HBR case study mentions - Winfrey Oprah takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Oprah Winfrey, it seems that the employees of Winfrey Oprah 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Oprah Winfrey, in the dynamic environment Winfrey Oprah has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Winfrey Oprah has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Winfrey Oprah 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Winfrey Oprah is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Oprah Winfrey can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Winfrey Oprah 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 - Oprah Winfrey 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, Nancy F. Koehn, Erica Helms, Katherine Miller, Rachel K. Wilcox suggests that, Winfrey Oprah 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Winfrey Oprah products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Winfrey Oprah needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Oprah Winfrey | 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 Oprah Winfrey are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Winfrey Oprah 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Winfrey Oprah 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 Winfrey Oprah to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Winfrey Oprah 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Winfrey Oprah 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Winfrey Oprah has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Oprah Winfrey - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Winfrey Oprah to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Winfrey Oprah 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, Winfrey Oprah is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Oprah Winfrey 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Winfrey Oprah can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Oprah Winfrey 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Winfrey Oprah can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Winfrey Oprah can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Winfrey Oprah 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Winfrey Oprah 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Winfrey Oprah 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.
Threats Oprah Winfrey External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Oprah Winfrey are -
Environmental challenges
– Winfrey Oprah 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. Winfrey Oprah can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Winfrey Oprah 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Winfrey Oprah 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Winfrey Oprah 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 Oprah Winfrey .
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 Winfrey Oprah in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Winfrey Oprah with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Winfrey Oprah is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Winfrey Oprah 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.
Increasing wage structure of Winfrey Oprah
– 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 Winfrey Oprah.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Winfrey Oprah needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Winfrey Oprah 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oprah Winfrey 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 Oprah Winfrey 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 Oprah Winfrey 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 Oprah Winfrey 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 Oprah Winfrey 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 Winfrey Oprah needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.