How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Managers and directors alike face tough choices as they decide on the quality and quantity of information that the board receives and uses in its governance and fiduciary roles. As the fallout from recent crises such as the subprime mortgage debacle illustrates, both sides must address the problem of "information asymmetry" -- the gap between the information available to management and to the board. The authors' research suggests that tomorrow's boardroom will be reshaped by three related forces: First, they face a thorough rethinking, brought on by concerned stakeholders, of directors' information needs. In responding to these pressures, boards and management must overcome several impediments: caution about altering the dynamics of the present manager-director relationship; directors' lack of needed skills for interpreting the new information; and the inertia of cultural norms. Second, they face dramatic improvements in the performance assessment approaches used to guide boards' decision making. The core of a healthy information relationship between managers and directors is their agreement on the most useful performance metrics to track and assess. This selection enables the building of trust and an eased and more pertinent workload for the board (having been freed from the need to decode reams of data while also gaining some independence from management's sometimes self-serving evaluations). Finally, boards and managers face the adoption of technologies that support critical board functions. Once access to such information is granted, new technologies can help directors obtain and use it. Board members may apply tools that, for example, enable improved visualizations and helpful alerts. And directors may engage in electronic "what-if" analyses, using company data as well as outside information -- related, say, to competing firms -- which is becoming increasingly available online.
Authors :: Robert J. Thomas, Michael Schrage, Joshua Bellin, George Marcotte
Swot Analysis of "How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto" written by Robert J. Thomas, Michael Schrage, Joshua Bellin, George Marcotte includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Directors Boards facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational structure and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Directors Boards, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Directors Boards 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Directors Boards
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 Directors Boards
Strengths How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Directors Boards in How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Directors Boards 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 Directors Boards 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 Directors Boards in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Directors Boards is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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
- Directors Boards 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 Directors Boards is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Directors Boards has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Directors Boards is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Directors Boards to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Directors Boards to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Directors Boards has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Directors Boards to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Directors Boards in the sector have low bargaining power. How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Directors Boards to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Directors Boards 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Directors Boards
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Directors Boards does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Directors Boards has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Directors Boards 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.
Weaknesses How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto, it seems that the employees of Directors Boards 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto HBR case study mentions - Directors Boards takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Directors Boards, firm in the HBR case study How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto, is just above the industry average. Directors Boards 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Directors Boards 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Directors Boards 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Robert J. Thomas, Michael Schrage, Joshua Bellin, George Marcotte suggests that, Directors Boards 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
Directors Boards 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto, in the dynamic environment Directors Boards has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Directors Boards has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Directors Boards 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 - How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Directors Boards has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Opportunities How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto | 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Directors Boards 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. Directors Boards can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Directors Boards 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Directors Boards 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 Directors Boards has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Directors Boards to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto case study. Directors Boards can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Directors Boards 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 Directors Boards 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Directors Boards 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Directors Boards can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Directors Boards 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.
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. Directors Boards 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. Directors Boards 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Directors Boards 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Directors Boards can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Directors Boards operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto are -
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Directors Boards 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.
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.
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. Directors Boards 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
– Directors Boards 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Directors Boards 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Directors Boards 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto .
Regulatory challenges
– Directors Boards 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.
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
– Directors Boards has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Directors Boards 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Directors Boards 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Directors Boards is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Directors Boards business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Directors Boards needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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 How Boards Can Be Better -- a Manifesto 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 Directors Boards needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.