Case Study Description of Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment
After thirty-three years as a corporate lawyer, Marissa Wesely became a 2014 Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow at Harvard University to pursue her passion of advancing women's rights, particularly in the developing world. She took on a leadership role with the Win-Win Coalition, which worked with women's funds and local women's organizations, advocated for the value of cross-sector partnerships and coached key players to work together and find common ground despite different vocabularies and expectations. The case covers key lessons and questions for consideration during Wesely's early stage efforts to launch the Win-Win Coalition into global prominence under a cohesive identity and strategy.
Authors :: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kelsi Stine-Rowe
Topics :: Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Tags :: Government, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment" written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kelsi Stine-Rowe includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Women's Win facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Government, Social enterprise, Social responsibility and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment casestudy better are - – technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Women's Win, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Women's Win 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Women's Win
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 Women's Win
Strengths Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Women's Win in Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Women's Win 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 Women's Win in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Women's Win 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 Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kelsi Stine-Rowe 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Women's Win is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Women's Win 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment - 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 Women's Win 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.
Training and development
– Women's Win has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Women's Win is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Women's Win to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Women's Win to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Women's Win in the sector have low bargaining power. Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Women's Win to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Women's Win 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 Women's Win is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Women's Win 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Women's Win 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Women's Win is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment, in the dynamic environment Women's Win has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Women's Win has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Women's Win 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment HBR case study mentions - Women's Win 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Women's Win, firm in the HBR case study Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment, 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 Women's Win 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Women's Win is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Women's Win 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 - Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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 Women's Win has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment | 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment are -
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. Women's Win 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. Women's Win 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.
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 Women's Win 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Women's Win 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Women's Win 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Women's Win 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Women's Win to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Women's Win 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Women's Win 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 Women's Win to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Women's Win 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Women's Win can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Women's Win operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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. Women's Win can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Women's Win to increase its market reach. Women's Win 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.
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 Women's Win in the consumer business. Now Women's Win can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Women's Win 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Women's Win is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Women's Win
– 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 Women's Win.
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.
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. Women's Win 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Women's Win with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Women's Win 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Women's Win 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment, Women's Win 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 .
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 Women's Win.
Regulatory challenges
– Women's Win 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Women's Win 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.
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 Women's Win in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Women's Win needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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 Marissa Wesely and Women's Empowerment 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 Women's Win needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.