Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. For their companies to remain competitive and successful, many executives strongly believe that they need to recruit and retain top talent. And to do so, they must foster meritocracies -hiring, rewarding, and promoting the best people, based on their merit. The most progressive companies have thus created formal systems for ensuring that job applicants and employees are judged solely by their efforts, skills, abilities, and performance, regardless of their gender, race, class, national origin, or sexual orientation.When managers believe their company is a meritocracy because formal evaluative and distributive mechanisms are in place, they are actually more likely to exhibit the very biases that those systems may seek to prevent. The very belief that an organization is meritocratic may open the door to biased, non-merit-based behavior when managers make key individual-level career decisions. The good news, the author reports, is that establishing a more meritocratic workplace doesn't require an inordinate amount of time or resources. It is a matter of establishing clear processes and criteria for hiring and evaluating employees. It is also a matter of monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of such company processes and bestowing an individual or group within the organization with the responsibility, ability, and authority to ensure that those formal processes are fair. The collection and analysis of data on people-related processes and outcomes -often referred to as "people analytics"-can enable companies to identify and correct workplace biases. The author conducted a longitudinal investigation of the translation of employee performance evaluations into compensation decisions at a large service organization in North America. He found that, over the long run, women and minorities received lower salary increases than white men with the same performance evaluation scores, even after controlling for job, work unit, and supervisor effects. The company's solution was to adopt a set of organizational procedures that incorporated both accountability and transparency into its performance reward system. The intervention consisted of introducing three key changes. First, a performance reward committee was appointed to monitor the fairness of pay decisions. Second, all senior managers had to follow a formalized process for assigning rewards based on employee evaluations. This process required the senior managers to briefly justify how much was awarded to each employee in their work unit. Third, the performance reward committee was granted the authority to modify pay decisions made by senior managers. After the new system was implemented, the author found significant reductions in the gender, race, and foreign nationality gaps for merit-based pay rewards. In fact, any remaining differences from such biases were negligible. Follow-up interviews with executives and managers at the company suggested that both the accountability and transparency mechanisms had been effective in reducing those pay gaps.
Swot Analysis of "Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace" written by Emilio J. Castilla includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Merit Biases facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Gender, Motivating people and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Merit Biases, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Merit Biases 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Merit Biases
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 Merit Biases
Strengths Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Merit Biases in Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Merit Biases has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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.
High brand equity
– Merit Biases has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Merit Biases to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Merit Biases 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 Emilio J. Castilla 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Merit Biases in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Merit Biases to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Merit Biases to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Merit Biases in the sector have low bargaining power. Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Merit Biases to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Merit Biases 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Merit Biases is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Merit Biases is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Merit Biases 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Merit Biases is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Merit Biases 's lucrative customers.
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 Merit Biases supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Merit Biases vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace HBR case study mentions - Merit Biases 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace, 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace, it seems that the employees of Merit Biases 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Merit Biases 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. Merit Biases even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Merit Biases is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Merit Biases needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Merit Biases to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace, in the dynamic environment Merit Biases has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Merit Biases has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Merit Biases is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Merit Biases 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Merit Biases has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace | 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Merit Biases has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Merit Biases to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace case study. Merit Biases can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Merit Biases 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Merit Biases to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Merit Biases can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Merit Biases 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Merit Biases 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Merit Biases can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Merit Biases 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 Merit Biases 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. Merit Biases 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. Merit Biases 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.
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 Merit Biases 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Merit Biases 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Merit Biases can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Merit Biases 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Merit Biases 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.
Threats Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace are -
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 Merit Biases.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Merit Biases 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.
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. Merit Biases can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Merit Biases 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Merit Biases with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace, Merit Biases 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 .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Merit Biases 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.
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.
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 Merit Biases 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 Merit Biases is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Merit Biases 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace .
Increasing wage structure of Merit Biases
– 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 Merit Biases.
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 Merit Biases business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace 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 Merit Biases needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
