Case Study Description of Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career
In 2005, Martha Goldberg Aronson must decide whether to accept an overseas posting in a functional role with Medtronic Corp. The move would be a professional stretch, but would entail leaving a position with a plan half completed and moving her young family overseas. Profiles the youth, career, family life, aspirations, and motivations of the rising executive. Provides information about the practical, personal, and business challenges of an international assignment. Raises questions regarding work-life balance and the opportunities of the proposed stretch assignment in balance with the desire to see an existing process through to completion.
Swot Analysis of "Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career" written by William W. George, Andrew N. McLean includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Aronson Goldberg facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Cross-cultural management, Leadership, Operations management, Work-life balance and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Aronson Goldberg, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Aronson Goldberg 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Aronson Goldberg
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 Aronson Goldberg
Strengths Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Aronson Goldberg in Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Aronson Goldberg 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Aronson Goldberg is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Aronson Goldberg in the sector have low bargaining power. Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Aronson Goldberg to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Aronson Goldberg digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Aronson Goldberg has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Innovation driven organization
– Aronson Goldberg is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Aronson Goldberg 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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
– Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Aronson Goldberg to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Aronson Goldberg to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Aronson Goldberg in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Aronson Goldberg is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Aronson Goldberg has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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.
Learning organization
- Aronson Goldberg 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 Aronson Goldberg is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Aronson Goldberg products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Aronson Goldberg needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Aronson Goldberg, firm in the HBR case study Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Aronson Goldberg 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Aronson Goldberg 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. Aronson Goldberg 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career, is just above the industry average. Aronson Goldberg 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career, it seems that the employees of Aronson Goldberg 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Aronson Goldberg is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Aronson Goldberg 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 - Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Aronson Goldberg 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Aronson Goldberg 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Aronson Goldberg has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career | 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career are -
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. Aronson Goldberg can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Aronson Goldberg in the consumer business. Now Aronson Goldberg can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Aronson Goldberg 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Aronson Goldberg 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, Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Aronson Goldberg in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Aronson Goldberg 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Aronson Goldberg is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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.
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. Aronson Goldberg can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Aronson Goldberg 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Aronson Goldberg can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Aronson Goldberg 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Aronson Goldberg can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Aronson Goldberg operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Aronson Goldberg 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. Aronson Goldberg 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Aronson Goldberg 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Aronson Goldberg 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Aronson Goldberg 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Aronson Goldberg with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career, Aronson Goldberg 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 .
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 Aronson Goldberg in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Aronson Goldberg is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Aronson Goldberg 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.
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 Aronson Goldberg 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.
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. Aronson Goldberg 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Aronson Goldberg 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Martha Goldberg Aronson: Leadership Decisions at Mid-Career 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 Aronson Goldberg needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
