Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market
The case highlights the infighting within a Thai family who own and operate a fresh-food market stall business in Bangkok. The case explores the depths to which the Thammawattana dynasty sank in order to keep control of a profitable cash-in-hand business that had made the matriarch, Suwapee Thammawattana, a billionaire by the time of her death at age 65.
Authors :: Morten Bennedsen, Brian Henry, Yupana Wiwattanakantang
Swot Analysis of "Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market" written by Morten Bennedsen, Brian Henry, Yupana Wiwattanakantang includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Thammawattana Bangkok facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Thammawattana Bangkok, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Thammawattana Bangkok 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Thammawattana Bangkok
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 Thammawattana Bangkok
Strengths Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Thammawattana Bangkok in Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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 Morten Bennedsen, Brian Henry, Yupana Wiwattanakantang 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
High brand equity
– Thammawattana Bangkok has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Thammawattana Bangkok to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Thammawattana Bangkok
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Thammawattana Bangkok does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Thammawattana Bangkok is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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.
Training and development
– Thammawattana Bangkok has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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 Thammawattana Bangkok in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Thammawattana Bangkok is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Thammawattana Bangkok to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Thammawattana Bangkok to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market - 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
– Thammawattana Bangkok is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Morten Bennedsen, Brian Henry, Yupana Wiwattanakantang suggests that, Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market, in the dynamic environment Thammawattana Bangkok has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Thammawattana Bangkok has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Thammawattana Bangkok 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. Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Thammawattana Bangkok is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Thammawattana Bangkok needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Thammawattana Bangkok to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market, is just above the industry average. Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Thammawattana Bangkok is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 Thammawattana Bangkok 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market | 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Thammawattana Bangkok is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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
– Thammawattana Bangkok can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 Thammawattana Bangkok to increase its market reach. Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Thammawattana Bangkok to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Thammawattana Bangkok can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Thammawattana Bangkok can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Thammawattana Bangkok 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, Thammawattana Bangkok can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Thammawattana Bangkok operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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. Thammawattana Bangkok 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. Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Thammawattana Bangkok has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Thammawattana Bangkok to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market case study. Thammawattana Bangkok can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Thammawattana Bangkok 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, Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market, 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market are -
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. Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Thammawattana Bangkok is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Increasing wage structure of Thammawattana Bangkok
– 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 Thammawattana Bangkok.
Environmental challenges
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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. Thammawattana Bangkok can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
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 Thammawattana Bangkok business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Thammawattana Bangkok 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.
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 Thammawattana Bangkok.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market, Thammawattana Bangkok 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 .
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 Billionaire's Curse: Gun-based Succession Planning for a Bangkok Market 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 Thammawattana Bangkok needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
