Case Study Description of Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline
Zurich Insurance was undergoing organizational change after implementing five new people practices focused on: manager development, diversity and inclusion, job model and data analytics, recruitment, and talent pipeline. The case "Zurich Insurance: Fostering Key People Management Practices" (417-035) provides background of the company and an outline of each people practice, as well as a description of how the company's culture was changing and how its allocation of resources was being examined as it tried to improve its position in the marketplace. This case takes a closer look at succession planning at the top of the organization, including a focus on leadership competencies and development.
Swot Analysis of "Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline" written by Boris Groysberg, Katherine Connolly includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Zurich Insurance facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture, Succession planning and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zurich Insurance, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zurich Insurance 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zurich Insurance
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 Zurich Insurance
Strengths Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zurich Insurance in Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Zurich Insurance in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zurich Insurance 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Zurich Insurance 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 Zurich Insurance is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Zurich Insurance 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 Zurich Insurance in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zurich Insurance digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zurich Insurance 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zurich Insurance 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zurich Insurance is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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.
Analytics focus
– Zurich Insurance 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 Boris Groysberg, Katherine Connolly 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Zurich Insurance in the sector have low bargaining power. Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Zurich Insurance to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zurich Insurance 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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.
High brand equity
– Zurich Insurance has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zurich Insurance to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline HBR case study mentions - Zurich Insurance 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline, in the dynamic environment Zurich Insurance has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zurich Insurance has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline, is just above the industry average. Zurich Insurance 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Zurich Insurance is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Zurich Insurance needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Zurich Insurance to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Zurich Insurance 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 - Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zurich Insurance is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Zurich Insurance 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. Zurich Insurance 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Boris Groysberg, Katherine Connolly suggests that, Zurich Insurance 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Zurich Insurance 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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 Zurich Insurance 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Zurich Insurance, firm in the HBR case study Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline | 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline are -
Buying journey improvements
– Zurich Insurance can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Zurich Insurance 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.
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 Zurich Insurance 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zurich Insurance is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zurich Insurance can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zurich Insurance 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zurich Insurance 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zurich Insurance 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zurich Insurance 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zurich Insurance to increase its market reach. Zurich Insurance 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zurich Insurance 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 Zurich Insurance to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Zurich Insurance 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. Zurich Insurance 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.
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. Zurich Insurance can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zurich Insurance has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zurich Insurance 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zurich Insurance 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zurich Insurance 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 Zurich Insurance is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Zurich Insurance 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.
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 Zurich Insurance in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Zurich Insurance business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zurich Insurance 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Zurich Insurance with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Zurich Insurance.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline, Zurich Insurance 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 .
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. Zurich Insurance 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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 Zurich Insurance: Talent Pipeline 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 Zurich Insurance needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
