Swot Analysis of "Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem" written by Lynda M. Applegate, Alexander Meyer, Talia Varley includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ashes Chicago's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ashes Chicago's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ashes Chicago's 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ashes Chicago's
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 Ashes Chicago's
Strengths Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ashes Chicago's in Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ashes Chicago's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ashes Chicago's 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ashes Chicago's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Ashes Chicago's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Ashes Chicago's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Ashes Chicago's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ashes Chicago's 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Ashes Chicago's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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
– Ashes Chicago's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ashes Chicago's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ashes Chicago's in the sector have low bargaining power. Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ashes Chicago's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Ashes Chicago's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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.
Learning organization
- Ashes Chicago's 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 Ashes Chicago's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ashes Chicago's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem HBR case study mentions - Ashes Chicago's 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ashes Chicago's 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ashes Chicago's 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Ashes Chicago's has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ashes Chicago's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Ashes Chicago's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ashes Chicago's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, is just above the industry average. Ashes Chicago's needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ashes Chicago's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ashes Chicago's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, it seems that the employees of Ashes Chicago's 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Ashes Chicago's 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ashes Chicago's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem | 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem are -
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. Ashes Chicago's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ashes Chicago's 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ashes Chicago's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Ashes Chicago's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Ashes Chicago's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ashes Chicago's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ashes Chicago's 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 Ashes Chicago's to increase its market reach. Ashes Chicago's 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
– Ashes Chicago's 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.
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 Ashes Chicago's in the consumer business. Now Ashes Chicago's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ashes Chicago's in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ashes Chicago's 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ashes Chicago's 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ashes Chicago's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ashes Chicago's 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ashes Chicago's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Ashes Chicago's in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, Ashes Chicago's 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ashes Chicago's 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 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ashes Chicago's 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ashes Chicago's 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ashes Chicago's is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Ashes Chicago's 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. Ashes Chicago's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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. Ashes Chicago's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Ashes Chicago's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Ashes Chicago's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Rising From the Ashes: The Emergence of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem 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 Ashes Chicago's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.