Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins
Monique Leroux led a major transformation, overcoming resistance, at a large Canadian financial cooperative based in Quebec that competed with top Canadian banks. Leroux was elected in 2008 as Chairman, President, and CEO of Desjardins Group. In order to compete effectively in a demanding and changing financial services industry and survive the global financial crisis, Desjardins needed to integrate, consolidate, and determine how to preserve traditional values while preparing for the future and emerging as a less provincial financial group. In 2012 she reflected on the change efforts and the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Swot Analysis of "Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins" written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ai-Ling Jamila Malone includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Desjardins Leroux facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Crisis management, Gender, Leadership, Social enterprise, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Desjardins Leroux, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Desjardins Leroux 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Desjardins Leroux
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 Desjardins Leroux
Strengths Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Desjardins Leroux in Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Desjardins Leroux in the sector have low bargaining power. Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Desjardins Leroux to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Desjardins Leroux digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Desjardins Leroux 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Desjardins Leroux 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.
Analytics focus
– Desjardins Leroux 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 Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ai-Ling Jamila Malone 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.
Organizational Resilience of Desjardins Leroux
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Desjardins Leroux does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Desjardins Leroux 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 Desjardins Leroux in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Desjardins Leroux is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Desjardins Leroux in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Desjardins Leroux 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Desjardins Leroux to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Desjardins Leroux to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Desjardins Leroux is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Desjardins Leroux has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Desjardins Leroux, firm in the HBR case study Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Desjardins Leroux 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Desjardins Leroux 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Desjardins Leroux 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. Desjardins Leroux 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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 Desjardins Leroux has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins, 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Desjardins Leroux products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Desjardins Leroux needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Desjardins Leroux is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Desjardins Leroux needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Desjardins Leroux 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins, in the dynamic environment Desjardins Leroux has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Desjardins Leroux has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Desjardins Leroux is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins, is just above the industry average. Desjardins Leroux 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.
Opportunities Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins | 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Desjardins Leroux 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 Desjardins Leroux to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Desjardins Leroux 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 Desjardins Leroux 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 Desjardins Leroux 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 Desjardins Leroux 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Desjardins Leroux can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Desjardins Leroux 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. Desjardins Leroux 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Desjardins Leroux 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Desjardins Leroux can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Desjardins Leroux 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Desjardins Leroux to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Desjardins Leroux is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Desjardins Leroux can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Desjardins Leroux operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Desjardins Leroux has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Desjardins Leroux to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins case study. Desjardins Leroux can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins are -
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. Desjardins Leroux needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Desjardins Leroux 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Desjardins Leroux high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing wage structure of Desjardins Leroux
– 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 Desjardins Leroux.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Desjardins Leroux with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Desjardins Leroux can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Desjardins Leroux.
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.
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 Desjardins Leroux business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Desjardins Leroux 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Desjardins Leroux 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Desjardins Leroux 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins, Desjardins Leroux 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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 Monique Leroux: Leading Change at Desjardins 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 Desjardins Leroux needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.