Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right
We rarely experience genuine innovation, the author argues, and when we do, it makes us nervous. Our most common reaction to something unprecedented is to prime ourselves for frustration-to throw our hands up and say we simply don't understand it. The lesson for designers and decision-makers alike is that the more innovative a product or service will be, the more familiar it needs to feel. He shows that product categories can be broken down along a familiarity/novelty continuum, and that in most cases, the most successful isn't the one that makes the biggest splash, but the product that correctly balances familiar cues with new benefits.
Swot Analysis of "Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right" written by Paul Oa??Connor includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Familiar Makes facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, Leadership and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Familiar Makes, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Familiar Makes 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Familiar Makes
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 Familiar Makes
Strengths Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Familiar Makes in Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Familiar Makes has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Familiar Makes 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Familiar Makes is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Familiar Makes 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 Familiar Makes in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Familiar Makes digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Familiar Makes 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.
Training and development
– Familiar Makes has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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
– Familiar Makes is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Familiar Makes in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Familiar Makes is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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
– Familiar Makes has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Familiar Makes to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Familiar Makes 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Familiar Makes 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Familiar Makes to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Familiar Makes to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right, is just above the industry average. Familiar Makes 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Familiar Makes is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Familiar Makes needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Familiar Makes to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Familiar Makes 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. Familiar Makes 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Familiar Makes 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Familiar Makes 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Familiar Makes needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right HBR case study mentions - Familiar Makes 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 Familiar Makes products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Familiar Makes needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Familiar Makes supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Familiar Makes vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Familiar Makes is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right | 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Familiar Makes 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Familiar Makes 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Familiar Makes to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Familiar Makes 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
– Familiar Makes 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.
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. Familiar Makes 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. Familiar Makes 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Familiar Makes has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Familiar Makes to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right case study. Familiar Makes can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Familiar Makes in the consumer business. Now Familiar Makes can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Familiar Makes can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Familiar Makes 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, Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Familiar Makes 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Familiar Makes 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, Familiar Makes can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Familiar Makes operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Familiar Makes is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Familiar Makes with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Familiar Makes 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Familiar Makes 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Familiar Makes 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Familiar Makes has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Familiar Makes 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 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. Familiar Makes needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Familiar Makes 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Familiar Makes 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.
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 Familiar Makes.
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. Familiar Makes 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.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right, Familiar Makes 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 .
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. Familiar Makes can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Accessible Innovation: Striking the Balance Between What's New and What's Right 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 Familiar Makes needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
