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 - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, 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 -
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Carrie's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Carrie Carrie's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Carrie's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Carrie Carrie's 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 Carrie Wagner: Climbing the Corporate Ladder (B) - Towards Senior Management - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Carrie Carrie's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.