Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos
Provides background biographical information on P. Roy Vagelos, chief executive officer of Merck Pharmaceuticals. Teaching Purpose: To chart the development of a leader in the pharmaceutical industry.
Swot Analysis of "Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos" written by Nitin Nohria, Bridget Gurtler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Vagelos Biographical facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Vagelos Biographical, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Vagelos Biographical 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Vagelos Biographical
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 Vagelos Biographical
Strengths Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Vagelos Biographical in Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Vagelos Biographical to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Vagelos Biographical to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Vagelos Biographical 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 Vagelos Biographical in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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
– Vagelos Biographical 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 Nitin Nohria, Bridget Gurtler 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Vagelos Biographical is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Vagelos Biographical in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Vagelos Biographical 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 Vagelos Biographical is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Vagelos Biographical is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Vagelos Biographical has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Vagelos Biographical 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos - 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
– Vagelos Biographical 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Vagelos Biographical
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Vagelos Biographical does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos, is just above the industry average. Vagelos Biographical 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Vagelos Biographical 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 - Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Vagelos Biographical is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Vagelos Biographical 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Vagelos Biographical 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Vagelos Biographical is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Vagelos Biographical 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. Vagelos Biographical 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Nitin Nohria, Bridget Gurtler suggests that, Vagelos Biographical 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos, 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Vagelos Biographical 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Vagelos Biographical has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos | 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Vagelos Biographical to increase its market reach. Vagelos Biographical 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.
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 Vagelos Biographical in the consumer business. Now Vagelos Biographical can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Vagelos Biographical can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Vagelos Biographical 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.
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. Vagelos Biographical can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Vagelos Biographical 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Vagelos Biographical 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Vagelos Biographical is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Vagelos Biographical can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Vagelos Biographical can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Vagelos Biographical operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Vagelos Biographical 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Vagelos Biographical 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Vagelos Biographical 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 Vagelos Biographical to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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. Vagelos Biographical 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.
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. Vagelos Biographical needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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. Vagelos Biographical can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Vagelos Biographical has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Vagelos Biographical 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Vagelos Biographical with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Vagelos Biographical.
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 Vagelos Biographical in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Vagelos Biographical
– 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 Vagelos Biographical.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos, Vagelos Biographical 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
– Vagelos Biographical 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. Vagelos Biographical can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Vagelos Biographical 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Vagelos Biographical 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Brief Biographical Note on P. Roy Vagelos 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 Vagelos Biographical needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
