UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL
Michael Reich is having severe doubts about how he split the equity with his co-founders two months ago, when they completed a one-page "November Agreement." Since then, Michael has found an angel investor and has worked non-stop on the business, while one co-founder was off enjoying the winter break with his family and the other worked on lucrative consulting contracts for other companies. Michael has just sent his co-founders a proposal that would re-allocate the equity within their founding team, and all three founders are getting ready to reopen a negotiation they thought had been finalized.
Swot Analysis of "UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL" written by Noam Wasserman, Deepak Malhotra includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Michael Founders facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Compensation, Entrepreneurial finance, IT, Negotiations and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Michael Founders, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Michael Founders 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Michael Founders
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 Michael Founders
Strengths UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Michael Founders in UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Michael Founders is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Michael Founders 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Michael Founders is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Michael Founders digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Michael Founders 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Michael Founders has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Michael Founders 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Michael Founders 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Michael Founders 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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.
Organizational Resilience of Michael Founders
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Michael Founders does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Michael Founders 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 Michael Founders in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Michael Founders 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 Michael Founders in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL HBR case study mentions - Michael Founders 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Noam Wasserman, Deepak Malhotra suggests that, Michael Founders 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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 Michael Founders has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Michael Founders products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Michael Founders 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 Michael Founders, firm in the HBR case study UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Michael Founders is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Michael Founders supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Michael Founders vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Michael Founders has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Michael Founders is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Michael Founders is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Michael Founders needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Michael Founders to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL, in the dynamic environment Michael Founders has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Michael Founders has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL | 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Michael Founders has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Michael Founders to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL case study. Michael Founders can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Michael Founders can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Michael Founders to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Michael Founders to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Michael Founders 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Michael Founders 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Michael Founders to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Michael Founders 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Michael Founders 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Michael Founders 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, UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL, 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 Michael Founders 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Michael Founders can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Michael Founders operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
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 Michael Founders in the consumer business. Now Michael Founders can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Michael Founders 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. Michael Founders 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. Michael Founders 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.
Threats UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Michael Founders 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.
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. Michael Founders can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Michael Founders needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Michael Founders is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Michael Founders 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Michael Founders 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Michael Founders 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Michael Founders 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL .
Environmental challenges
– Michael Founders 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. Michael Founders can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Increasing wage structure of Michael Founders
– 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 Michael Founders.
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 Michael Founders in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Michael Founders 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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 UpDown: Confidential Instructions for MICHAEL 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 Michael Founders needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.