Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal
This is a Darden case study.What happens when strained relationships develop between two people you value in your organization and they come to you for advice? David Walker was a senior attorney in a bustling white shoe law practice. During an especially busy time, Walker became party to an in-office dispute between his trusted administrative assistant, Susan Emson, and a respected colleague, Ramya Kumar. He had spent numerous hours listening to both sides tell their stories and was left with an impending sense that he had no answers. How was he ever going to help two people he valued greatly work out a compromise between their extremely polar positions? How did the dispute get to such a point? The case provides opportunities to explore the sources of interpersonal conflict, causes of escalation, and ways of diffusing and resolving it.
Swot Analysis of "Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal" written by Martin N. Davidson, Gerry Yemen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Walker Dispute facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Conflict, Diversity, Leading teams, Personnel policies and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Walker Dispute, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Walker Dispute 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Walker Dispute
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 Walker Dispute
Strengths Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Walker Dispute in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Walker Dispute 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Walker Dispute is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Walker Dispute is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Walker Dispute 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.
Learning organization
- Walker Dispute 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 Walker Dispute is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Walker Dispute 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 Walker Dispute in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Walker Dispute has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Walker Dispute in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Walker Dispute has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Walker Dispute to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Walker Dispute is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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
– Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Walker Dispute to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Walker Dispute to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Walker Dispute has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Walker Dispute 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.
Weaknesses Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Walker Dispute 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Walker Dispute 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Walker Dispute 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal HBR case study mentions - Walker Dispute 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Walker Dispute products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Walker Dispute needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal, is just above the industry average. Walker Dispute 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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 Walker Dispute 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Walker Dispute 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Walker Dispute 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Walker Dispute is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal, it seems that the employees of Walker Dispute 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.
Opportunities Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal | 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal are -
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 Walker Dispute to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Walker Dispute is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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.
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 Walker Dispute in the consumer business. Now Walker Dispute can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Walker Dispute 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Walker Dispute to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Walker Dispute 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 Walker Dispute to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Walker Dispute 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Walker Dispute 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Walker Dispute 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, Walker Dispute can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Walker Dispute operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Walker Dispute 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, Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Walker Dispute has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Walker Dispute to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal case study. Walker Dispute can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Walker Dispute 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. Walker Dispute 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Walker Dispute 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.
Threats Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Walker Dispute 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.
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. Walker Dispute 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.
Increasing wage structure of Walker Dispute
– 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 Walker Dispute.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Walker Dispute with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Walker Dispute 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.
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 Walker Dispute.
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 Walker Dispute in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Walker Dispute needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Walker Dispute business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Walker Dispute has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Walker Dispute 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Walker Dispute 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal .
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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 Finder, Minder & Grinder: The Charges and Rebuttal 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 Walker Dispute needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.