Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First
The case follows the progress of a year-long multi-module 'Make a Difference' programme for all 70 employees of Best Western Italy, the European operations and reservations centre for Best Western International, a global hotel group. The programme is designed to help individuals explore their own personal and professional goals, and then to work together to redesign the mission and vision of their organization. The objective is to unlock organizational energy, and to enhance trust and communication across all hierarchical levels. The outcomes included a restructuring of the senior executive level to create a flatter organization with more distributed leadership; improvement in the Great Places to Work Institute Italia ranking; and six company-wide projects initiated by employees. The case describes not only the programme design, but the necessary precursors for successful implementation, including organizational readiness for change and the skills and experience required of the coaches. It poses the question: How can this level of organizational change and renewal be sustained over time? Please visit the dedicated case website http://cases.insead.edu/best-western-italy to access video interviews and other support material.
Authors :: Elizabeth Florent-Treacy, Massimiliano Saccarelli, Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries
Swot Analysis of "Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First" written by Elizabeth Florent-Treacy, Massimiliano Saccarelli, Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Programme Western facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Leadership development and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Programme Western, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Programme Western 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Programme Western
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 Programme Western
Strengths Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Programme Western in Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Programme Western 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Programme Western in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Programme Western 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Programme Western to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Programme Western to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Programme Western has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Programme Western 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Programme Western is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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.
Organizational Resilience of Programme Western
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Programme Western does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Programme Western 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 Programme Western in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Programme Western has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Programme Western to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Programme Western 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Programme Western is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Programme Western is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Programme Western 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First, is just above the industry average. Programme Western 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Programme Western 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Programme Western 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. Programme Western 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Programme Western has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elizabeth Florent-Treacy, Massimiliano Saccarelli, Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries suggests that, Programme Western 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Programme Western 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Programme Western products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Programme Western needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Programme Western 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.
Opportunities Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First | 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Programme Western has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Programme Western to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First case study. Programme Western can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Programme Western 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Programme Western is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Programme Western 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Programme Western can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Programme Western to increase its market reach. Programme Western 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Programme Western 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Programme Western 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, Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First, 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. Programme Western can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Programme Western 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Programme Western to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Programme Western can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Programme Western 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Programme Western 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.
Threats Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First are -
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. Programme Western 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.
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.
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 Programme Western business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
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 Programme Western in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline 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. Programme Western 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, Programme Western 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Programme Western 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.
Increasing wage structure of Programme Western
– 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 Programme Western.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Programme Western 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Programme Western has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Programme Western 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.
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 Programme Western.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Programme Western 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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 Best Western Italy (C): Creating an Authentizotic Organization by Putting People First 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 Programme Western needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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