PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B)
In 2011, the PNC Financial Services Group announced the addition of $250 million to the $100 million that it had pledged to its early childhood education program, Group Up Great, in 2003. The case serves as an update to the "PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (A)" case, which outlined the design and implementation of the program and presented key challenges. The (B) case will show some of the program's responses to challenges like the strategic integration to Grow Up Great into the bank's business; the introduction of the program to new markets following the bank's geographical expansion; and the measurement of the programs' social impact.
Authors :: Christopher Marquis, William Drewery, Bradley Crane, Laura Velez Villa
Swot Analysis of "PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B)" written by Christopher Marquis, William Drewery, Bradley Crane, Laura Velez Villa includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Pnc Grow facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture, Social responsibility and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pnc Grow, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pnc Grow 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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pnc Grow
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 Pnc Grow
Strengths PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pnc Grow in PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Pnc Grow 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Pnc Grow has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Pnc Grow 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
– Pnc Grow is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) 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 Pnc Grow
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Pnc Grow does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pnc Grow in the sector have low bargaining power. PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Pnc Grow to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Pnc Grow is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Pnc Grow to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Pnc Grow to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Pnc Grow in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Pnc Grow 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Pnc Grow is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Pnc Grow has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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.
Weaknesses PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Pnc Grow is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Pnc Grow needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Pnc Grow to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B), it seems that the employees of Pnc Grow 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Pnc Grow has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Pnc Grow 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B), is just above the industry average. Pnc Grow 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Pnc Grow needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Pnc Grow is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Pnc Grow products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Pnc Grow needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Christopher Marquis, William Drewery, Bradley Crane, Laura Velez Villa suggests that, Pnc Grow 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Pnc Grow is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Pnc Grow can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Pnc Grow operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Pnc Grow 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.
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. Pnc Grow can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Pnc Grow 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.
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 Pnc Grow 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.
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. Pnc Grow can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pnc Grow 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Pnc Grow 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Pnc Grow can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Pnc Grow can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Pnc Grow 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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Pnc Grow to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Pnc Grow 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. Pnc Grow 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pnc Grow to increase its market reach. Pnc Grow 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.
Threats PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) are -
Environmental challenges
– Pnc Grow 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. Pnc Grow can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing wage structure of Pnc Grow
– 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 Pnc Grow.
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 Pnc Grow in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Pnc Grow with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Pnc Grow needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Pnc Grow 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Pnc Grow has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Pnc Grow needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pnc Grow 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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (B) .
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 Pnc Grow.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Pnc Grow 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Pnc Grow 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Pnc Grow is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 PNC Financial: Grow Up Great (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 Pnc Grow needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
