Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe
This case uses vignettes and statistics of the broader issue discussed in each vignette to explore some of the ways in which gender is played out in the struggle for power and control. Disenfranchised groups--those not allowed access to critical resources--have little access to power. In many countries, women represent one of these disenfranchised groups. Women around the world are disproportionately denied access to employment, education, religious freedoms, many traditional routes to business funding, collective action, and social welfare. The vignettes explore ways in which inroads to equality are being made on new, innovative paths. Even mainstream approaches to accessing critical resources are becoming more gender neutral. The vignettes and statistics are meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.
Authors :: Alexis Gendron, Nicole Nasser, Kathleen L. McGinn
Swot Analysis of "Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe" written by Alexis Gendron, Nicole Nasser, Kathleen L. McGinn includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Vignettes Disenfranchised facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Influence and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Vignettes Disenfranchised, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Vignettes Disenfranchised
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 Vignettes Disenfranchised
Strengths Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Vignettes Disenfranchised in Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Vignettes Disenfranchised has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Vignettes Disenfranchised in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Vignettes Disenfranchised is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Analytics focus
– Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Alexis Gendron, Nicole Nasser, Kathleen L. McGinn 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Vignettes Disenfranchised is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe - 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 Vignettes Disenfranchised
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Vignettes Disenfranchised does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Vignettes Disenfranchised has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Vignettes Disenfranchised is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Vignettes Disenfranchised is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Weaknesses Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Vignettes Disenfranchised, firm in the HBR case study Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Vignettes Disenfranchised is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 - Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Vignettes Disenfranchised has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe, it seems that the employees of Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe, is just above the industry average. Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Alexis Gendron, Nicole Nasser, Kathleen L. McGinn suggests that, Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Vignettes Disenfranchised products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Vignettes Disenfranchised needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe HBR case study mentions - Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Vignettes Disenfranchised 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe | 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe are -
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 Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Vignettes Disenfranchised to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Vignettes Disenfranchised to increase its market reach. Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Vignettes Disenfranchised in the consumer business. Now Vignettes Disenfranchised can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Vignettes Disenfranchised can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Vignettes Disenfranchised to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Vignettes Disenfranchised can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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
– Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Vignettes Disenfranchised to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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. Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Environmental challenges
– Vignettes Disenfranchised needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Vignettes Disenfranchised can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Vignettes Disenfranchised is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Vignettes Disenfranchised can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Vignettes Disenfranchised has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe, Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe .
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 Vignettes Disenfranchised.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Vignettes Disenfranchised 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.
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. Vignettes Disenfranchised 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Women and Power: Stories from Around the Globe 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 Vignettes Disenfranchised needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
