Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar
Most family businesses do not last for long. Only one third are able to survive the transition from first to second generation. A critical issue in the perpetuation of family businesses is the management of succession. Most successions primarily fail because the first generation founders find it difficult to let go or disengage from the business as they approach the age of retirement. As a result, they fail to prepare the next generation of successors for the leadership role. The founders often fail to plan for succession due to a number of different reasons such as a lack of other interests outside of work, psychological identity with the firm, and fears of aging or death. Due to these reasons, the founder's retirement from the business is frequently portrayed as a negative event. Succession, in turn, is often seen as a phase of crisis and upheaval, which a business must overcome. However, this need not necessarily be the case. Retirement could provide a new, even more exciting, phase of life, while succession could be viewed as a strategic opportunity to revive the business. This case involves an accomplished business leader, B.K. Jhawar (BK), founder of Usha Martin Group (UMG), who successfully managed the twin challenges of retirement and succession. By the time he reached the age of retirement, BK had built up a social venture (KGVK) as his second and endless career option. Before completely disengaging from the business and transitioning to his new role full time, BK prepared the second generation for business leadership and effectively passed on the baton.
Swot Analysis of "Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar" written by K. Ramachandran, Alexander Mathew includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Bk Retirement facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Leadership, Organizational culture, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bk Retirement, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bk Retirement 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bk Retirement
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 Bk Retirement
Strengths Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bk Retirement in Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bk Retirement in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Bk Retirement has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bk Retirement to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bk Retirement 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Bk Retirement has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bk Retirement to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bk Retirement to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bk Retirement 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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
– Bk Retirement 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 Bk Retirement in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Bk Retirement
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Bk Retirement does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bk Retirement is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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.
Learning organization
- Bk Retirement 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 Bk Retirement is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Bk Retirement 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 K. Ramachandran, Alexander Mathew 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.
Weaknesses Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Bk Retirement products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Bk Retirement needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bk Retirement is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Bk Retirement needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bk Retirement to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bk Retirement 's lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar HBR case study mentions - Bk Retirement takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Bk Retirement 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar, it seems that the employees of Bk Retirement 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Bk Retirement 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bk Retirement is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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 Bk Retirement has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar, in the dynamic environment Bk Retirement has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bk Retirement has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Bk Retirement, firm in the HBR case study Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar | 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bk Retirement can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Bk Retirement can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bk Retirement 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bk Retirement 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bk Retirement has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Bk Retirement to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar case study. Bk Retirement can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bk Retirement 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 Bk Retirement to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Bk Retirement 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bk Retirement in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Bk Retirement 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.
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. Bk Retirement 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. Bk Retirement 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bk Retirement 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bk Retirement is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Bk Retirement in the consumer business. Now Bk Retirement can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bk Retirement 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar .
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 Bk Retirement.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Bk Retirement with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Bk Retirement
– 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 Bk Retirement.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bk Retirement is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bk Retirement 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Bk Retirement 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.
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. Bk Retirement can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bk Retirement 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar, Bk Retirement 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bk Retirement has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bk Retirement 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.
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 Bk Retirement in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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 Passing the Baton: Role Transition of B. K. Jhawar 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 Bk Retirement needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
