Presents interviews and conversations with a woman who recently started a publishing house. Primarily concerns her immediate future regarding harvesting options: IPO, sell out, step up to chairman, venture capital, etc. Also deals with the excitement and thrill of having your own business dream; i.e., the thrill of doing.
Swot Analysis of "Valerie Morgan" written by Howard H. Stevenson, James Z. Turner includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Thrill Valerie facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Valerie Morgan case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Financial management and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Valerie Morgan casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, 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, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Valerie Morgan case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Thrill Valerie, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Thrill Valerie 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 Valerie Morgan can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Valerie Morgan case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Thrill Valerie
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 Thrill Valerie
Strengths Valerie Morgan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Thrill Valerie in Valerie Morgan Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Thrill Valerie 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 Howard H. Stevenson, James Z. Turner 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Thrill Valerie is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Valerie Morgan 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Thrill Valerie in the sector have low bargaining power. Valerie Morgan has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Thrill Valerie to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Thrill Valerie digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Thrill Valerie 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 Valerie Morgan 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Thrill Valerie 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Thrill Valerie has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Thrill Valerie 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Thrill Valerie in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Thrill Valerie has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Valerie Morgan 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Thrill Valerie is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Valerie Morgan Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– Thrill Valerie has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Thrill Valerie to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Thrill Valerie is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Valerie Morgan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Valerie Morgan are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Thrill Valerie is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Valerie Morgan can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Valerie Morgan 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 Thrill Valerie 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Valerie Morgan, it seems that the employees of Thrill Valerie 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Valerie Morgan, 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Thrill Valerie, firm in the HBR case study Valerie Morgan needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Thrill Valerie 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 - Valerie Morgan should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Thrill Valerie 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Valerie Morgan HBR case study mentions - Thrill Valerie 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Thrill Valerie 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.
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 Thrill Valerie supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Valerie Morgan, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Thrill Valerie vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Valerie Morgan HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Thrill Valerie has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Valerie Morgan | 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 Valerie Morgan are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Thrill Valerie is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Valerie Morgan 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.
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. Thrill Valerie 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. Thrill Valerie 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Thrill Valerie 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Thrill Valerie 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Thrill Valerie 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Thrill Valerie 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 Valerie Morgan - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Thrill Valerie to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Thrill Valerie 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Thrill Valerie 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 Thrill Valerie to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Thrill Valerie 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Thrill Valerie can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Valerie Morgan 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.
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. Thrill Valerie can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Thrill Valerie can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Thrill Valerie 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, Valerie Morgan, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Valerie Morgan External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Valerie Morgan are -
Increasing wage structure of Thrill Valerie
– 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 Thrill Valerie.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Thrill Valerie 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Thrill Valerie has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Thrill Valerie 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 Thrill Valerie 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.
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 Thrill Valerie.
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. Thrill Valerie can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Thrill Valerie needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Valerie Morgan, Thrill Valerie 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Thrill Valerie 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. Thrill Valerie can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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
– Thrill Valerie 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Thrill Valerie with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Valerie Morgan 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 Valerie Morgan 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 Valerie Morgan 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 Valerie Morgan 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 Valerie Morgan 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 Thrill Valerie needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.