Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance
Discusses two families that started out as friends and wound up in court after disagreeing over a business deal from which both stood to gain. Most disputes can eventually be resolved by courts, attorneys, and time. But the resolutions may spawn a second set of problems. These, too, must be fully weighed and resolved. The challenge is to decide when it is time to put an end to an episode, to close the books both financially and emotionally. Settlements provide benefits for both sides in a dispute. But the choices they present may not always be a clear call. For family businesses, the decisions are not always easy, and there can be more than one way to measure true cost.
Authors :: Richard Mandel, John Saber, Mark Potter, Chris Hennessey
Swot Analysis of "Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance" written by Richard Mandel, John Saber, Mark Potter, Chris Hennessey includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Resolved Books facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Negotiations, Regulation and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Resolved Books, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Resolved Books 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Resolved Books
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 Resolved Books
Strengths Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Resolved Books in Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Resolved Books is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Resolved Books has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Resolved Books 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Resolved Books in the sector have low bargaining power. Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Resolved Books to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Resolved Books in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Resolved Books has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Resolved Books to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Resolved Books 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 Richard Mandel, John Saber, Mark Potter, Chris Hennessey 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Resolved Books 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.
Organizational Resilience of Resolved Books
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Resolved Books does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Resolved Books 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 Resolved Books is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Resolved Books is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Resolved Books 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Resolved Books to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Resolved Books to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Resolved Books is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Resolved Books 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance 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 Resolved Books has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Resolved Books 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance HBR case study mentions - Resolved Books 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Resolved Books 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Resolved Books 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Resolved Books 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 - Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Resolved Books, firm in the HBR case study Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Resolved Books is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Resolved Books needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Resolved Books to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Resolved Books products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Resolved Books needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance | 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance are -
Manufacturing automation
– Resolved Books 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Resolved Books 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. Resolved Books 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. Resolved Books 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.
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. Resolved Books can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Resolved Books has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Resolved Books to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance case study. Resolved Books can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Resolved Books 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Resolved Books can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Resolved Books operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Resolved Books can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance 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.
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 Resolved Books 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Resolved Books can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Resolved Books 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
– Resolved Books 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Resolved Books 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 Resolved Books to increase its market reach. Resolved Books 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.
Threats Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Resolved Books 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance, Resolved Books 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Resolved Books 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Resolved Books 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Resolved Books 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Resolved Books has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Resolved Books 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 Resolved Books.
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. Resolved Books 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.
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. Resolved Books can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Resolved Books needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Resolved Books 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Resolved Books is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance 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 Closing the Books: A Tale of Friends, Family and Finance 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 Resolved Books needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
