Swot Analysis of "Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest" written by Ashish Nanda includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Pledge Professionalism facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, Regulation and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pledge Professionalism, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pledge Professionalism 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pledge Professionalism
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 Pledge Professionalism
Strengths Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pledge Professionalism in Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Pledge Professionalism 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pledge Professionalism in the sector have low bargaining power. Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Pledge Professionalism to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Pledge Professionalism digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Pledge Professionalism 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Pledge Professionalism 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
– Pledge Professionalism has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Pledge Professionalism to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Pledge Professionalism 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 Ashish Nanda 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Pledge Professionalism 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 Pledge Professionalism in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Pledge Professionalism 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.
Learning organization
- Pledge Professionalism 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 Pledge Professionalism is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pledge Professionalism 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Pledge Professionalism has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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.
Weaknesses Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Pledge Professionalism products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Pledge Professionalism needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Pledge Professionalism 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. Pledge Professionalism 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, Pledge Professionalism 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Pledge Professionalism is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Pledge Professionalism has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest, in the dynamic environment Pledge Professionalism has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Pledge Professionalism has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Pledge Professionalism 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Pledge Professionalism 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, Ashish Nanda suggests that, Pledge Professionalism 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 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 Pledge Professionalism supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Pledge Professionalism vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Pledge Professionalism 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.
Opportunities Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest | 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Pledge Professionalism 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Pledge Professionalism to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pledge Professionalism 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pledge Professionalism 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Pledge Professionalism can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Pledge Professionalism 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, Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Pledge Professionalism in the consumer business. Now Pledge Professionalism can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Pledge Professionalism 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Pledge Professionalism is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Pledge Professionalism can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Pledge Professionalism 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. Pledge Professionalism 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pledge Professionalism to increase its market reach. Pledge Professionalism 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Pledge Professionalism 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.
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 Pledge Professionalism 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.
Threats Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest are -
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. Pledge Professionalism can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Pledge Professionalism 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.
Increasing wage structure of Pledge Professionalism
– 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 Pledge Professionalism.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Pledge Professionalism 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Pledge Professionalism with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Pledge Professionalism 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.
Environmental challenges
– Pledge Professionalism 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. Pledge Professionalism can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Pledge Professionalism 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pledge Professionalism 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest .
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Pledge Professionalism has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Pledge Professionalism 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. Pledge Professionalism needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Pledge Professionalism 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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 Essence of Professionalism: Managing Conflict of Interest 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 Pledge Professionalism needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
