Swot Analysis of "Leadership at WildChina (B)" written by Daniel J. Isenberg, Shirley M. Spence includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wildchina Supplements facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Leadership at WildChina (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Leadership, Succession planning and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Leadership at WildChina (B) casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Leadership at WildChina (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Leadership at WildChina (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wildchina Supplements, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wildchina Supplements 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Leadership at WildChina (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wildchina Supplements
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 Wildchina Supplements
Strengths Leadership at WildChina (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wildchina Supplements in Leadership at WildChina (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Wildchina Supplements 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 Wildchina Supplements in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Wildchina Supplements is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Leadership at WildChina (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Wildchina Supplements 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
– Wildchina Supplements has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Leadership at WildChina (B) 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.
Analytics focus
– Wildchina Supplements 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 Daniel J. Isenberg, Shirley M. Spence 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.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Wildchina Supplements digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Wildchina Supplements 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wildchina Supplements is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Leadership at WildChina (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Wildchina Supplements 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 Wildchina Supplements is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Leadership at WildChina (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wildchina Supplements 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
– Wildchina Supplements 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wildchina Supplements 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
– Wildchina Supplements 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Leadership at WildChina (B) are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Wildchina Supplements 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 - Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Wildchina Supplements has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Wildchina Supplements is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Wildchina Supplements 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Daniel J. Isenberg, Shirley M. Spence suggests that, Wildchina Supplements is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Leadership at WildChina (B), it seems that the employees of Wildchina Supplements 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Wildchina Supplements has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Leadership at WildChina (B) HBR case study mentions - Wildchina Supplements 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wildchina Supplements products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wildchina Supplements 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 Wildchina Supplements, firm in the HBR case study Leadership at WildChina (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wildchina Supplements is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Leadership at WildChina (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Leadership at WildChina (B) | 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) 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. Wildchina Supplements 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. Wildchina Supplements 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Wildchina Supplements can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Leadership at WildChina (B) 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Wildchina Supplements 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Wildchina Supplements 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Wildchina Supplements has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Wildchina Supplements to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Leadership at WildChina (B) case study. Wildchina Supplements can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wildchina Supplements 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.
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. Wildchina Supplements 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. Wildchina Supplements can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Wildchina Supplements can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wildchina Supplements 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Wildchina Supplements can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wildchina Supplements 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 Wildchina Supplements to increase its market reach. Wildchina Supplements 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.
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 Wildchina Supplements 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.
Threats Leadership at WildChina (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Leadership at WildChina (B) are -
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 Wildchina Supplements in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Wildchina Supplements is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Wildchina Supplements business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 wage structure of Wildchina Supplements
– 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 Wildchina Supplements.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wildchina Supplements has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wildchina Supplements 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wildchina Supplements 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.
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. Wildchina Supplements needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Wildchina Supplements 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) .
Environmental challenges
– Wildchina Supplements 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. Wildchina Supplements can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Wildchina Supplements 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Wildchina Supplements 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Leadership at WildChina (B) 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 Wildchina Supplements needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.