Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business
Setting a strategic direction for a business school, initiating a culture change, and overcoming a massive financial deficit were challenges faced by the incoming dean of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Alison Davis-Blake. Of the four strategic pillars adopted-analytical rigor, action learning, boundarylessness, and a focus on the positive-the positive pillar was both the most controversial and the most differentiating. After experiencing dramatic success over a five-year period, Davis-Blake stepped down and a new dean was appointed, Scott DeRue. He had to determine whether to keep the positive pillar or abandon it.
Swot Analysis of "Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business" written by Kim Cameron, Jane Dutton, Robert Quinn includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Positive Blake facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Positive Blake, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Positive Blake 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Positive Blake
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 Positive Blake
Strengths Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Positive Blake in Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Positive Blake 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Positive Blake 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Positive Blake is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Positive Blake has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Positive Blake to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Positive Blake in the sector have low bargaining power. Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Positive Blake to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Positive Blake has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Positive Blake is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Positive Blake to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Positive Blake to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Positive Blake has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Positive Blake has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Positive Blake is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Positive Blake
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Positive Blake does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Positive Blake in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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 Positive Blake 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Positive Blake 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business, it seems that the employees of Positive Blake 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business, is just above the industry average. Positive Blake 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Positive Blake 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 - Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Positive Blake 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business HBR case study mentions - Positive Blake takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Positive Blake, firm in the HBR case study Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Positive Blake 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, Kim Cameron, Jane Dutton, Robert Quinn suggests that, Positive Blake 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.
Opportunities Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business | 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Positive Blake is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Positive Blake to increase its market reach. Positive Blake 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 Positive Blake 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Positive Blake 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 Positive Blake to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Positive Blake 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Positive Blake 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.
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 Positive Blake in the consumer business. Now Positive Blake can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Positive Blake 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.
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. Positive Blake 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. Positive Blake 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Positive Blake 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Positive Blake 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Positive Blake has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Positive Blake to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business case study. Positive Blake can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Positive Blake 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.
Threats Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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. Positive Blake 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.
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. Positive Blake 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
– Positive Blake 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 Positive Blake 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 Positive Blake with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Positive Blake 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 Positive Blake business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Positive Blake has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Positive Blake 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 Positive Blake in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Positive Blake can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Positive Blake
– 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 Positive Blake.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Positive Blake 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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 Emphasizing the Positive: Forming a Strategic Identity for the Ross School of Business 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 Positive Blake needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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