North Lincoln SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Finance & Accounting
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of North Lincoln
A process rather than a numbers case that focuses on the relationships within a state government, and their impact on the way the budget is developed. One issue is the role of the Director of the Office of Fiscal Affairs and his relationship with the Secretaries and the budget bureau. A related issue is that the governor does not see the budget as high priority, has delegated considerable budget responsibility to his staff assistant and doesn't deal with his Secretaries directly, doesn't consult his fiscal staff about the effect of new programs, and hasn't met with the Director of the budget bureau since he has been in office.
Swot Analysis of "North Lincoln" written by David W. Young includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Budget Secretaries facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in North Lincoln case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Conflict, Government and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the North Lincoln casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in North Lincoln case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Budget Secretaries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Budget Secretaries 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 North Lincoln can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in North Lincoln case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Budget Secretaries
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Budget Secretaries
Strengths North Lincoln | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Budget Secretaries in North Lincoln Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the North Lincoln Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Budget Secretaries are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Budget Secretaries
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Budget Secretaries does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Budget Secretaries 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Budget Secretaries in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Budget Secretaries 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 Budget Secretaries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in North Lincoln Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Budget Secretaries is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in North Lincoln 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.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Budget Secretaries digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Budget Secretaries 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Budget Secretaries 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 North Lincoln HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Budget Secretaries has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Budget Secretaries 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.
High brand equity
– Budget Secretaries has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Budget Secretaries to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Budget Secretaries in the sector have low bargaining power. North Lincoln has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Budget Secretaries to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses North Lincoln | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of North Lincoln are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Budget Secretaries is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study North Lincoln can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study North Lincoln 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 North Lincoln can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Budget Secretaries is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Budget Secretaries 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the North Lincoln 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 Budget Secretaries has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Budget Secretaries 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Budget Secretaries 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As North Lincoln HBR case study mentions - Budget Secretaries 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 North Lincoln, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Budget Secretaries 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study North Lincoln, it seems that the employees of Budget Secretaries 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Budget Secretaries products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Budget Secretaries needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities North Lincoln | 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 North Lincoln are -
Loyalty marketing
– Budget Secretaries 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.
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 Budget Secretaries 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Budget Secretaries to increase its market reach. Budget Secretaries 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Budget Secretaries can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. North Lincoln 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Budget Secretaries 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 North Lincoln - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Budget Secretaries to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Budget Secretaries 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Budget Secretaries 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. Budget Secretaries 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Budget Secretaries 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, North Lincoln, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Budget Secretaries 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Budget Secretaries can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Budget Secretaries can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Budget Secretaries operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Budget Secretaries can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Budget Secretaries is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. North Lincoln 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.
Threats North Lincoln External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study North Lincoln are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Budget Secretaries 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study North Lincoln, Budget Secretaries may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Budget Secretaries 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.
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. Budget Secretaries will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing wage structure of Budget Secretaries
– 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 Budget Secretaries.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Budget Secretaries has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Budget Secretaries needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Budget Secretaries 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 North Lincoln .
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 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. Budget Secretaries needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Budget Secretaries in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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 Budget Secretaries.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Budget Secretaries with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of North Lincoln 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 North Lincoln 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 North Lincoln 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 North Lincoln 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 North Lincoln 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 Budget Secretaries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
