Swot Analysis of "Elizabeth Best (D)" written by C. Wickham Skinner, Ardis Burst includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Elizabeth Accomplish facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Elizabeth Best (D) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Operations management, Organizational structure, Project management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Elizabeth Best (D) casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Elizabeth Best (D)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Elizabeth Best (D) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Elizabeth Accomplish, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Elizabeth Accomplish 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 Elizabeth Best (D) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Elizabeth Best (D) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Elizabeth Accomplish
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 Elizabeth Accomplish
Strengths Elizabeth Best (D) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Elizabeth Accomplish in Elizabeth Best (D) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Elizabeth Accomplish has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Elizabeth Accomplish to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Elizabeth Accomplish
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Elizabeth Accomplish does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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 C. Wickham Skinner, Ardis Burst 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Elizabeth Accomplish is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Elizabeth Best (D) 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Elizabeth Accomplish is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Elizabeth Best (D) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Elizabeth Accomplish 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 Elizabeth Accomplish is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Elizabeth Best (D) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Elizabeth Accomplish has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Elizabeth Best (D) 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Elizabeth Best (D) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Elizabeth Accomplish to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Elizabeth Accomplish to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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 Elizabeth Best (D) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Elizabeth Accomplish in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Elizabeth Accomplish has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Best (D) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Elizabeth Best (D) are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Best (D) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Elizabeth Accomplish is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Elizabeth Accomplish 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 - Elizabeth Best (D) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Elizabeth Accomplish, firm in the HBR case study Elizabeth Best (D) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Elizabeth Best (D), in the dynamic environment Elizabeth Accomplish has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Elizabeth Accomplish has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Elizabeth Accomplish 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, C. Wickham Skinner, Ardis Burst suggests that, Elizabeth Accomplish is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Elizabeth Accomplish is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Elizabeth Accomplish needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Elizabeth Accomplish to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Elizabeth Accomplish is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Best (D), 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.
Opportunities Elizabeth Best (D) | 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 Elizabeth Best (D) are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Elizabeth Accomplish is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Elizabeth Best (D) 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.
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 Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
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. Elizabeth Accomplish 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. Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Elizabeth Accomplish 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 Elizabeth Accomplish to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Elizabeth Accomplish can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Elizabeth Best (D) 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Elizabeth Accomplish can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
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. Elizabeth Accomplish can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Elizabeth Accomplish to increase its market reach. Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Elizabeth Accomplish 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
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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 Elizabeth Best (D) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Elizabeth Accomplish to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Elizabeth Best (D) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Elizabeth Best (D) are -
Increasing wage structure of Elizabeth Accomplish
– 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 Elizabeth Accomplish.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Elizabeth Accomplish.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Elizabeth Accomplish 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 Elizabeth Best (D) .
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. Elizabeth Accomplish needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Elizabeth Best (D), Elizabeth Accomplish 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 .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
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. Elizabeth Accomplish can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Elizabeth Accomplish 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Elizabeth Accomplish is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Best (D) 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 Elizabeth Accomplish needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.