Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance
This case revolves around the experiences of an MBA student at an Indian business school. The student is dynamic, capable and intent on high achievement, but his pursuit of recognition eventually hampers his and his team's learning and performance. The case is based on an event that happens within a course on organizational behaviour where the student makes a major mistake in his analysis of a case due to his need to demonstrate his competence and validate himself. This hurts his and his team's performance on an assigned task. After the event, the student and his team members reflect on the events that led to this mistake. They also take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation - Behavior (FIRO-B) assessments to determine their personality preferences and interpersonal needs that might have influenced the team's functioning. Author Syed Salman Ahmad is affiliated with Copenhagen Business School. Authors Sheetanshu Mishra and Santosh Kumar are affiliated with the Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur
Swot Analysis of "Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance" written by Syed Salman Ahmad, Sheetanshu Mishra, Santosh Kumar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Team's Student facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Team's Student, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Team's Student 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Team's Student
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 Team's Student
Strengths Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Team's Student in Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Team's Student 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Team's Student has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Team's Student to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Team's Student
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Team's Student does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Team's Student is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Syed Salman Ahmad, Sheetanshu Mishra, Santosh Kumar can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Team's Student 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Team's Student in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Team's Student is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Team's Student 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Team's Student 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 Team's Student in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Team's Student has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Team's Student 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Team's Student to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Team's Student to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance are -
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 Team's Student supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Team's Student vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Syed Salman Ahmad, Sheetanshu Mishra, Santosh Kumar suggests that, Team's Student 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance, is just above the industry average. Team's Student 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Team's Student products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Team's Student 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 Team's Student, firm in the HBR case study Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Team's Student 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. Team's Student 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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 Team's Student has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Team's Student is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance, 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Team's Student 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Team's Student 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.
Opportunities Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance | 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Team's Student 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Team's Student can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Team's Student operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Team's Student can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Team's Student can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Team's Student 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Team's Student can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Team's Student 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Team's Student 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Team's Student 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Team's Student to increase its market reach. Team's Student 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.
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. Team's Student 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. Team's Student 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Team's Student 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
– Team's Student 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.
Threats Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance are -
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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Team's Student 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance, Team's Student 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Team's Student 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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Team's Student business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Team's Student 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.
Increasing wage structure of Team's Student
– 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 Team's Student.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Team's Student 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 Team's Student is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Team's Student in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Team's Student 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Team's Student 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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 Motivated Reasoning, Leadership and Team Performance 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 Team's Student needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.