Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation
This case explores the benefits and challenges of creating and sustaining an organizational culture that emphasizes fun and playfulness by telling the story of an inspiring organization that has cultivated such a culture: the Michigan chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation (MAW). The case provides background information on the organization and describes the initiatives and activities that create a playful culture at MAW. It also highlights the benefits and challenges of playfulness for employees, external partners, donors, and wish families, as well as describes how leaders and employees create a culture of "serious play" that maintains the benefits while minimizing the costs of playfulness.
Swot Analysis of "Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation" written by Adam M. Grant, Lauren Malcolm includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Playfulness Maw facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, 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 , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Playfulness Maw, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Playfulness Maw 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Playfulness Maw
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 Playfulness Maw
Strengths Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Playfulness Maw in Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Playfulness Maw in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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.
Analytics focus
– Playfulness Maw 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 Adam M. Grant, Lauren Malcolm can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Organizational Resilience of Playfulness Maw
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Playfulness Maw does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Playfulness Maw is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Playfulness Maw has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Playfulness Maw is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Playfulness Maw 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Playfulness Maw 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Playfulness Maw 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
– Playfulness Maw 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 Playfulness Maw in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Playfulness Maw in the sector have low bargaining power. Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Playfulness Maw to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Playfulness Maw is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation HBR case study mentions - Playfulness Maw 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation, is just above the industry average. Playfulness Maw 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Playfulness Maw 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation, 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Playfulness Maw 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Playfulness Maw 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Playfulness Maw 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 - Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Playfulness Maw 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Playfulness Maw 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Playfulness Maw products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Playfulness Maw needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation | 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Playfulness Maw can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Playfulness Maw operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Playfulness Maw 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Playfulness Maw 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 Playfulness Maw to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Playfulness Maw 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Playfulness Maw 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, Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Playfulness Maw can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Playfulness Maw 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Playfulness Maw 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Playfulness Maw has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Playfulness Maw to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation case study. Playfulness Maw can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Playfulness Maw is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Playfulness Maw to increase its market reach. Playfulness Maw 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.
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. Playfulness Maw can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Playfulness Maw 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.
Threats Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation are -
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Playfulness Maw has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Playfulness Maw 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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Playfulness Maw business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Playfulness Maw in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Playfulness Maw
– 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 Playfulness Maw.
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 Playfulness Maw.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Playfulness Maw 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Playfulness Maw 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Playfulness Maw with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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. Playfulness Maw needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation, Playfulness Maw 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Playfulness Maw 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. Playfulness Maw can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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 Serious Play at the Make-A-Wish-Foundation 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 Playfulness Maw needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
