Swot Analysis of "Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C)" written by Linda A. Hill, Kristin C. Doughty includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Jeanne Staples facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication, Gender, Influence, Leadership, Leading teams, Marketing, Succession planning and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jeanne Staples, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jeanne Staples
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 Jeanne Staples
Strengths Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jeanne Staples in Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jeanne Staples has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jeanne Staples 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jeanne Staples is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Staples is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jeanne Staples in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Jeanne Staples has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jeanne Staples to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jeanne Staples in the sector have low bargaining power. Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jeanne Staples to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Jeanne Staples has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jeanne Staples digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jeanne Staples 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Jeanne Staples is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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.
Weaknesses Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C), is just above the industry average. Jeanne Staples 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jeanne Staples is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Staples has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jeanne Staples 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jeanne Staples 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Jeanne Staples 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Jeanne Staples 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C), it seems that the employees of Jeanne Staples 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jeanne Staples products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jeanne Staples needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C), 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Staples 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) | 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) are -
Loyalty marketing
– Jeanne Staples 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jeanne Staples 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jeanne Staples can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jeanne Staples operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jeanne Staples 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.
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 Jeanne Staples in the consumer business. Now Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Staples 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, Jeanne Staples is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Jeanne Staples can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jeanne Staples to increase its market reach. Jeanne Staples 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jeanne Staples 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jeanne Staples to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Staples has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Jeanne Staples to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) case study. Jeanne Staples can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jeanne Staples 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.
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 Jeanne Staples.
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 Jeanne Staples in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C), Jeanne Staples 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
– Jeanne Staples 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. Jeanne Staples can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jeanne Staples 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.
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 Jeanne Staples business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jeanne Staples has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jeanne Staples 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.
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. Jeanne Staples 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. Jeanne Staples 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jeanne Staples 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 Jeanne Staples 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (C) 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 Jeanne Staples needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
