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Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

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

Topics :: Leadership & Managing People

Tags :: , SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

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 - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc



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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 -

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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Carrie Carrie's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Carrie Carrie's has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.

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.

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.

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.

Organizational Resilience of Carrie Carrie's

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Carrie Carrie's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Innovation driven organization

– Carrie Carrie's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Carrie Carrie's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Carrie Carrie's 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.

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.

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.

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.






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 -

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management, it seems that the employees of Carrie Carrie's 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management, in the dynamic environment Carrie Carrie's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Carrie Carrie's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

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.

High dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Carrie's has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Aligning sales with marketing

– It come across in the case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Carrie Carrie's is planning to shift buying processes online.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Carrie Carrie's, firm in the HBR case study Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Carrie Carrie's 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 - Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

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.

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.

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.

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.




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 -

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.

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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Carrie Carrie's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Carrie Carrie's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management case study. Carrie Carrie's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Carrie Carrie's to increase its market reach. Carrie Carrie's 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 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.

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 Carrie Carrie's 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.

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.

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. Carrie Carrie's 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. Carrie Carrie's 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.

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 Carrie Carrie's in the consumer business. Now Carrie Carrie's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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.

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.

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.

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.




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 -

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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. Carrie Carrie's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

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.

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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management .

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Carrie Carrie's 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Carrie Carrie's 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.

Environmental challenges

– Carrie Carrie's 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. Carrie Carrie's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.

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.



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