Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C)
"This is a case series featuring an A, B and C case. Robert Harvey, a business professor at a small university in Iowa, arranged for Hopwood Manufacturing Company to come to the campus to interview his students for internship and management-in-training positions, only to learn that the recruiters, Dave Maggert and Wendy Blair, appeared to be more interested in the appearances of the candidates than their qualifications. Harvey must now decide what action to take in response to the recruiters' discriminatory statements."
Swot Analysis of "Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C)" written by Timothy Ogden includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Hopwood Recruiters facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Diversity, Labor, Leadership, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hopwood Recruiters, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hopwood Recruiters 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hopwood Recruiters
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hopwood Recruiters
Strengths Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hopwood Recruiters in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hopwood Recruiters is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hopwood Recruiters 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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 Hopwood Recruiters
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Hopwood Recruiters does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Hopwood Recruiters is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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)
– Hopwood Recruiters 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hopwood Recruiters is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Hopwood Recruiters digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hopwood Recruiters in the sector have low bargaining power. Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hopwood Recruiters to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Hopwood Recruiters 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 Hopwood Recruiters in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hopwood Recruiters in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Hopwood Recruiters products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hopwood Recruiters needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Timothy Ogden suggests that, Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hopwood Recruiters is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Hopwood Recruiters needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hopwood Recruiters to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hopwood Recruiters, firm in the HBR case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hopwood Recruiters has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Hopwood Recruiters 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.
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 Hopwood Recruiters supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hopwood Recruiters vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hopwood Recruiters 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 - Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) | 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hopwood Recruiters has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Hopwood Recruiters to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) case study. Hopwood Recruiters can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Hopwood Recruiters can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Hopwood Recruiters can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Hopwood Recruiters can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Hopwood Recruiters can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hopwood Recruiters 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. Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hopwood Recruiters 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
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 Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hopwood Recruiters in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People 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, Hopwood Recruiters can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hopwood Recruiters operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Hopwood Recruiters is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hopwood Recruiters 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.
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.
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 Hopwood Recruiters.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hopwood Recruiters in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
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. Hopwood Recruiters needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C), Hopwood Recruiters may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hopwood Recruiters is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Hopwood Recruiters 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
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.
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. Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Increasing wage structure of Hopwood Recruiters
– 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 Hopwood Recruiters.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Hopwood Recruiters with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hopwood Recruiters 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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 Hopwood Manufacturing: Seeking to Hire the Best and the Brightest, or Not (C) 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 Hopwood Recruiters needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.