Phil Charles (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Phil Charles (B)
In the B case, company changes force Phil Charles to face up to several career issues and work/life-style changes. See also the A (UV3192) and C (UV3194) cases.
Swot Analysis of "Phil Charles (B)" written by Alexander Horniman, Charlie Flocco includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Phil Charles facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Phil Charles (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Phil Charles (B) casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption,
increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Phil Charles (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Phil Charles, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Phil Charles 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 Phil Charles (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Phil Charles (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Phil Charles
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 Phil Charles
Strengths Phil Charles (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Phil Charles in Phil Charles (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Phil Charles is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Phil Charles (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Phil Charles is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Phil Charles (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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Phil Charles digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Phil Charles 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Phil Charles (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Phil Charles to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Phil Charles to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Phil Charles is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Phil Charles 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 Phil Charles 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
– Phil Charles has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Phil Charles 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Phil Charles 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 Phil Charles 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.
Learning organization
- Phil Charles is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Phil Charles is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Phil Charles (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Phil Charles in the sector have low bargaining power. Phil Charles (B) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Phil Charles to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Phil Charles has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Phil Charles (B) are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Phil Charles is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Phil Charles needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Phil Charles to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Phil Charles (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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Phil Charles (B), it seems that the employees of Phil Charles 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Phil Charles 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Phil Charles 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 - Phil Charles (B) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Phil Charles 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Phil Charles 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Phil Charles (B) 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 Phil Charles has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Phil Charles supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Phil Charles (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Phil Charles vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Phil Charles is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Phil Charles 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 Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles (B) are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Phil Charles 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.
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. Phil Charles can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Phil Charles 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Phil Charles 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Phil Charles to increase its market reach. Phil Charles 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Phil Charles can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Phil Charles (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.
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. Phil Charles 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. Phil Charles 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Phil Charles 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Phil Charles is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Phil Charles (B) 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Phil Charles has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Phil Charles to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Phil Charles (B) case study. Phil Charles can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Phil Charles 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Phil Charles 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 Phil Charles (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Phil Charles to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Phil Charles can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Phil Charles (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Phil Charles (B) are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Phil Charles 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 Phil Charles (B) .
Increasing wage structure of Phil Charles
– 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 Phil Charles.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Phil Charles (B), Phil Charles 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
– Phil Charles 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.
Environmental challenges
– Phil Charles 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. Phil Charles can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Phil Charles 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 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. Phil Charles needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Phil Charles 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Phil Charles 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Phil Charles is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Phil Charles has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Phil Charles 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles (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 Phil Charles needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.