Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience
In 2002, Worldclass Lighting launched an initiative to introduce the balanced scorecard into the Asia Pacific and Greater China regions, in order to provide a new management tool for its lighting business covering four perspectives-financial, customer, process, and learning and growth. The balanced scorecard ran successfully for a period of time until implementation issues surfaced that undermined its benefits, such as unquantifiable measures in target setting and the over-measurement of indicators. In 2009, a plan to terminate the balanced scorecard was presented to the Asia Pacific Chief Executive Officer ("AP CEO"). The AP CEO must now make a decision about whether to continue using the balanced scorecard.
Swot Analysis of "Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience" written by Ka Wai Shiu, Neale O'Connor includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Scorecard Balanced facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Balanced scorecard, Costs and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Scorecard Balanced, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Scorecard Balanced 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Scorecard Balanced
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 Scorecard Balanced
Strengths Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Scorecard Balanced in Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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
– Scorecard Balanced 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 Ka Wai Shiu, Neale O'Connor 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Scorecard Balanced 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Scorecard Balanced 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
– Scorecard Balanced 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Scorecard Balanced is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Scorecard Balanced to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Scorecard Balanced to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Scorecard Balanced 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 Scorecard Balanced is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Scorecard Balanced has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Scorecard Balanced 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 Scorecard Balanced in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Scorecard Balanced in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Scorecard Balanced 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Scorecard Balanced has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience, in the dynamic environment Scorecard Balanced has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Scorecard Balanced has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Scorecard Balanced 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. Scorecard Balanced 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience, it seems that the employees of Scorecard Balanced 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Scorecard Balanced 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Scorecard Balanced is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Scorecard Balanced 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Scorecard Balanced 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience, is just above the industry average. Scorecard Balanced 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Scorecard Balanced has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Opportunities Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience | 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Scorecard Balanced 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Scorecard Balanced 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Scorecard Balanced to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Scorecard Balanced to increase its market reach. Scorecard Balanced 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Scorecard Balanced can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Scorecard Balanced operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Scorecard Balanced 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Scorecard Balanced has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Scorecard Balanced to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience case study. Scorecard Balanced 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 Scorecard Balanced 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.
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 Scorecard Balanced in the consumer business. Now Scorecard Balanced can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Scorecard Balanced can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Scorecard Balanced 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Scorecard Balanced 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 Scorecard Balanced 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.
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. Scorecard Balanced 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. Scorecard Balanced 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.
Threats Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience are -
Regulatory challenges
– Scorecard Balanced 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.
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 Scorecard Balanced.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Scorecard Balanced 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Scorecard Balanced 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 wage structure of Scorecard Balanced
– 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 Scorecard Balanced.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Scorecard Balanced 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.
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 Scorecard Balanced business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience, Scorecard Balanced 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Scorecard Balanced with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Scorecard Balanced 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience .
Environmental challenges
– Scorecard Balanced 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. Scorecard Balanced 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. Scorecard Balanced can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Making Balanced Scorecard Work: The Worldclass Lighting Experience 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 Scorecard Balanced needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
