National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap
In April 2004, Singapore's Straits Times alleged in an article that T.T. Durai, CEO of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), had been drawing on public donations to pay for his generous salary, perks, and expenses. The media also discovered that Durai had installed extravagant fittings, including a gold-plated tap, in his office bathroom. Singaporeans, especially donors, were outraged at how the NKF had mismanaged donor funds. Finally, after intense public pressure, Durai and the NKF Board resigned in July 2005. Illustrates the importance of governance, transparency, and public accountability among social enterprises, and the consequences of weak internal controls over financial reporting.
Authors :: Amy Lau, Shirley Chan, Emily Ho
Topics :: Leadership & Managing People
Tags :: Corporate governance, Ethics, Performance measurement, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, Transparency, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap" written by Amy Lau, Shirley Chan, Emily Ho includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Durai Nkf facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate governance, Ethics, Performance measurement, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, Transparency and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap casestudy better are - – technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Durai Nkf, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Durai Nkf 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Durai Nkf
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 Durai Nkf
Strengths National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Durai Nkf in National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Durai Nkf
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Durai Nkf does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Durai Nkf is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Durai Nkf 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 Durai Nkf is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Durai Nkf 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Durai Nkf is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Durai Nkf digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Durai Nkf 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 Durai Nkf 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Durai Nkf 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Durai Nkf in the sector have low bargaining power. National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Durai Nkf to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Durai Nkf is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Durai Nkf has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Durai Nkf 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.
Weaknesses National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Amy Lau, Shirley Chan, Emily Ho suggests that, Durai Nkf 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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 Durai Nkf has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Durai Nkf 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Durai Nkf is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Durai Nkf needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Durai Nkf to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Durai Nkf 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Durai Nkf 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Durai Nkf 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 - National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Durai Nkf is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Durai Nkf products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Durai Nkf needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap, is just above the industry average. Durai Nkf 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Durai Nkf 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. Durai Nkf 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.
Opportunities National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap | 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap are -
Manufacturing automation
– Durai Nkf can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Durai Nkf can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Durai Nkf 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 Durai Nkf 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Durai Nkf 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.
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. Durai Nkf can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Durai Nkf 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. Durai Nkf can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Durai Nkf can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Durai Nkf in the consumer business. Now Durai Nkf can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Durai Nkf can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Durai Nkf operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Durai Nkf 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Durai Nkf is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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.
Threats National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap, Durai Nkf 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 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.
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. Durai Nkf needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Durai Nkf 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Durai Nkf with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Durai Nkf will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Durai Nkf has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Durai Nkf 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.
Environmental challenges
– Durai Nkf 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. Durai Nkf can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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. Durai Nkf can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Durai Nkf 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Durai Nkf 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 Durai Nkf
– 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 Durai Nkf.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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 National Kidney Foundation: CEO with a Golden Tap 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 Durai Nkf needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
