Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models
Advances in digital technologies have increased the possibilities for outsourcing business activities to crowds of independent contributors. Using the collective intelligence of a crowd opens a new range of business opportunities. In fact, crowdsourcing has led to the emergence of entirely new business models. Such crowd-based business models (CBBMs) can lead to an important competitive advantage while simultaneously presenting new challenges to entrepreneurs and executives. The author identifies and discusses three key challenges in designing and managing CBBMs: determining (1) the crowd's value to the firm, (2) how to create superior value for the crowd, and (3) how to capture value from the crowd effectively. Building on the crowd capital perspective and an analysis of the tactics and practices of successful CBBMs, this article offers propositions on how to overcome these challenges and manage such business models effectively. The identified practices can inspire decision makers when designing innovative CBBMs for their industries. Finally, the article concludes with a framework with the key decisions and tactics for effectively managing CBBMs.
Swot Analysis of "Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models" written by Karl Tauscher includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cbbms Crowd facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cbbms Crowd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cbbms Crowd 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cbbms Crowd
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 Cbbms Crowd
Strengths Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cbbms Crowd in Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Cbbms Crowd 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 Karl Tauscher 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cbbms Crowd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Cbbms Crowd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cbbms Crowd in the sector have low bargaining power. Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cbbms Crowd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cbbms Crowd is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cbbms Crowd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cbbms Crowd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cbbms Crowd is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Cbbms Crowd is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cbbms Crowd 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Cbbms Crowd 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 Cbbms Crowd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cbbms Crowd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cbbms Crowd 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
– Cbbms Crowd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cbbms Crowd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models HBR case study mentions - Cbbms Crowd 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cbbms Crowd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cbbms Crowd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models, 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cbbms Crowd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Cbbms Crowd 's lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cbbms Crowd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cbbms Crowd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cbbms Crowd 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Cbbms Crowd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cbbms Crowd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Cbbms Crowd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cbbms Crowd to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models, is just above the industry average. Cbbms Crowd 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.
Opportunities Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models | 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cbbms Crowd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Cbbms Crowd 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
– Cbbms Crowd 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cbbms Crowd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cbbms Crowd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Cbbms Crowd to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models case study. Cbbms Crowd can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Cbbms Crowd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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
– Cbbms Crowd 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cbbms Crowd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cbbms Crowd 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cbbms Crowd 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 Cbbms Crowd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Cbbms Crowd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cbbms Crowd 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. Cbbms Crowd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cbbms Crowd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cbbms Crowd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cbbms Crowd 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 Cbbms Crowd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Cbbms Crowd 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.
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.
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.
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 Cbbms Crowd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Cbbms Crowd 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cbbms Crowd is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cbbms Crowd 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.
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 Cbbms Crowd in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Cbbms Crowd.
Increasing wage structure of Cbbms Crowd
– 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 Cbbms Crowd.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cbbms Crowd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cbbms Crowd 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Leveraging Collective Intelligence: How to Design and Manage Crowd-Based Business Models 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 Cbbms Crowd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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