Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers
Explores how two senior Wall St. executives created a successful commercial opportunity for Lehman Brothers that focused on building relationships with minority- and women-owned financial services firms. Illustrates how Patricia Miller Zollar and Nadja Fidelia aligned the Partnership Solutions Groups' activities with Lehman Brothers' "one firm" strategy in ways that created economic value for the firm. Delves into the challenges of developing this business in an industry that tends to view "diversity" initiatives as activities that seek only to benefit society and not as opportunities to create economic gain.
Swot Analysis of "Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers" written by David A. Thomas, Stephanie J. Creary includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lehman Brothers facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Diversity, Financial management, Growth strategy, Influence, Joint ventures, Strategy execution and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lehman Brothers, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lehman Brothers
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 Lehman Brothers
Strengths Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lehman Brothers in Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Lehman Brothers 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)
– Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers - 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
– Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lehman Brothers is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Lehman Brothers 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 Lehman Brothers is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Lehman Brothers
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lehman Brothers does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lehman Brothers in the sector have low bargaining power. Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lehman Brothers to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Lehman Brothers is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lehman Brothers has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lehman Brothers 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 lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Lehman Brothers 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 Lehman Brothers in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lehman Brothers in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lehman Brothers 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. Lehman Brothers 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, Lehman Brothers 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers, is just above the industry average. Lehman Brothers 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lehman Brothers 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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 Lehman Brothers has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, David A. Thomas, Stephanie J. Creary suggests that, Lehman Brothers 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lehman Brothers has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers HBR case study mentions - Lehman Brothers 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Lehman Brothers 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Lehman Brothers, firm in the HBR case study Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lehman Brothers is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers | 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers are -
Loyalty marketing
– Lehman Brothers 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.
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 Lehman Brothers in the consumer business. Now Lehman Brothers 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, Lehman Brothers is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lehman Brothers to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Lehman Brothers can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Lehman Brothers operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lehman Brothers 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.
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 Lehman Brothers 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 Lehman Brothers 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 Lehman Brothers to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Lehman Brothers 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lehman Brothers has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Lehman Brothers to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers case study. Lehman Brothers can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Lehman Brothers 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. Lehman Brothers 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
– Lehman Brothers 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lehman Brothers can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers are -
Regulatory challenges
– Lehman Brothers 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.
Increasing wage structure of Lehman Brothers
– 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 Lehman Brothers.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers, Lehman Brothers 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 .
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. Lehman Brothers can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Lehman Brothers will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers .
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 Lehman Brothers in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lehman Brothers is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lehman Brothers has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lehman Brothers needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
High 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. Lehman Brothers needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Lehman Brothers with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Lehman Brothers 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. Lehman Brothers can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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 Creating The Partnership Solutions Group at Lehman Brothers 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 Lehman Brothers needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
