Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc.
Share Our Strength, a successful anti-hunger nonprofit organization, created a for-profit subsidiary--Community Wealth Ventures (CWV)--to provide advisory services to companies and nonprofits on collaboration. Management is reviewing CWV's start-up experience.
Swot Analysis of "Community Wealth Ventures, Inc." written by James E. Austin, Meredith D. Pearson includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wealth Cwv facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Joint ventures, Social enterprise and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc.
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wealth Cwv, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wealth Cwv 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wealth Cwv
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 Wealth Cwv
Strengths Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wealth Cwv in Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wealth Cwv is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Wealth Cwv has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wealth Cwv to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Wealth Cwv 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
- Wealth Cwv 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 Wealth Cwv is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wealth Cwv 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wealth Cwv 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Wealth Cwv has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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 lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Wealth Cwv 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 Wealth Cwv in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Wealth Cwv is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Wealth Cwv in the sector have low bargaining power. Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Wealth Cwv to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wealth Cwv in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Wealth Cwv 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 James E. Austin, Meredith D. Pearson 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.
Weaknesses Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., it seems that the employees of Wealth Cwv 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Wealth Cwv is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Wealth Cwv needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Wealth Cwv to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Wealth Cwv is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. HBR case study mentions - Wealth Cwv 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wealth Cwv is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Wealth Cwv 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wealth Cwv products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wealth Cwv needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Wealth Cwv, firm in the HBR case study Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Wealth Cwv 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wealth Cwv has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Wealth Cwv 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. Wealth Cwv 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.
Opportunities Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. | 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Wealth Cwv can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Wealth Cwv 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Wealth Cwv 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, Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Wealth Cwv can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Wealth Cwv 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.
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 Wealth Cwv in the consumer business. Now Wealth Cwv can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Wealth Cwv can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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.
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. Wealth Cwv 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. Wealth Cwv 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Wealth Cwv can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wealth Cwv operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wealth Cwv to increase its market reach. Wealth Cwv 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Wealth Cwv 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.
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 Wealth Cwv 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Wealth Cwv is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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.
Threats Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Wealth Cwv 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Wealth Cwv 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., Wealth Cwv 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 .
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 Wealth Cwv business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Wealth Cwv 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. Wealth Cwv can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wealth Cwv has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wealth Cwv 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.
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 Wealth Cwv in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Wealth Cwv.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wealth Cwv 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Wealth Cwv is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wealth Cwv 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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 Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. 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 Wealth Cwv needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.