Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management
This three-part case traces Carrie Wagner's career in a single, large international package delivery company over a 30-year period during which she rose through the ranks from a student's summer job to senior executive positions. Part (B) - Towards Senior Management (4 p.) - This section details Carrie's career from the age of 30 to 45, where she climbed several management levels up to the position of Executive Director.
Authors :: Anne Mesny, Brian King, Viana Poulin, Catherine Lassure
Swot Analysis of "Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management" written by Anne Mesny, Brian King, Viana Poulin, Catherine Lassure includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Carrie Carrie's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Carrie Carrie's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Carrie Carrie's
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 Carrie Carrie's
Strengths Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Carrie Carrie's in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Carrie Carrie's in the sector have low bargaining power. Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Carrie Carrie's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Carrie Carrie's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Carrie Carrie's 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Carrie Carrie's 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Carrie Carrie's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Carrie Carrie's 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 Anne Mesny, Brian King, Viana Poulin, Catherine Lassure 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.
High brand equity
– Carrie Carrie's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Carrie Carrie's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Carrie Carrie's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Carrie Carrie's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Carrie Carrie's 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
– Carrie Carrie's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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
- Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Carrie's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Carrie Carrie's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Carrie Carrie's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management, 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Carrie's 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Anne Mesny, Brian King, Viana Poulin, Catherine Lassure suggests that, Carrie Carrie's 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Carrie Carrie's has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Need for greater diversity
– Carrie Carrie's 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Carrie Carrie's 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Carrie Carrie's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Carrie Carrie's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Carrie Carrie's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Carrie Carrie's 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Carrie Carrie's 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. Carrie Carrie's 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.
Opportunities Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management | 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Carrie Carrie's 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Carrie Carrie's 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, Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management, 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 Carrie Carrie's 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Carrie Carrie's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Carrie Carrie's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Carrie Carrie's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Carrie Carrie's 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Carrie Carrie's 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Carrie Carrie's 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Carrie Carrie's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Carrie Carrie's 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, Carrie Carrie's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Carrie Carrie's can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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. Carrie Carrie's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management are -
Regulatory challenges
– Carrie Carrie's 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management, Carrie Carrie's 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 .
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Carrie Carrie's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Carrie Carrie's 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Carrie's is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Carrie Carrie's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Carrie Carrie's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Carrie Carrie's 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.
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 Carrie Carrie's in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Carrie Carrie's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Carrie's
– 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 Carrie Carrie's.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Carrie's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.