The Freelancers Union (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Freelancers Union (B)
One month after the launch of the Freelancers Insurance Company Sara Horowitz, Founder and CEO, holds a staff meeting to discuss the outcome. The discussion focuses in particular on members' reaction. With the staff at odds with one another, Horowitz considers what next steps to take.
Swot Analysis of "The Freelancers Union (B)" written by Michel Anteby, Erin McFee includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Freelancers Horowitz facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Freelancers Union (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Human resource management, Labor, Leadership, Organizational culture, Organizational structure, Social enterprise, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Freelancers Union (B) casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Freelancers Union (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Freelancers Union (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Freelancers Horowitz, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Freelancers Horowitz 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 The Freelancers Union (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Freelancers Union (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Freelancers Horowitz
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 Freelancers Horowitz
Strengths The Freelancers Union (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Freelancers Horowitz in The Freelancers Union (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Freelancers Horowitz 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 The Freelancers Union (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Freelancers Horowitz is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Freelancers Union (B) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Freelancers Horowitz has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Freelancers Union (B) 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Freelancers Horowitz is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Freelancers Union (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Freelancers Horowitz is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Freelancers Union (B) 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.
Learning organization
- Freelancers Horowitz 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 Freelancers Horowitz is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Freelancers Union (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– The Freelancers Union (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Freelancers Horowitz to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Freelancers Horowitz to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Freelancers Horowitz has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Freelancers Union (B) 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Freelancers Horowitz 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 The Freelancers Union (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Freelancers Horowitz in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Freelancers Horowitz digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Weaknesses The Freelancers Union (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Freelancers Union (B) are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Freelancers Horowitz is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Freelancers Horowitz needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Freelancers Horowitz to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Freelancers Horowitz has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Freelancers Horowitz even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Freelancers Union (B), in the dynamic environment Freelancers Horowitz has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Freelancers Horowitz has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Freelancers Horowitz supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Freelancers Union (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Freelancers Horowitz vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Freelancers Union (B), 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Freelancers Horowitz has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Freelancers Horowitz 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Freelancers Union (B) 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 Freelancers Horowitz has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Freelancers Horowitz, firm in the HBR case study The Freelancers Union (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities The Freelancers Union (B) | 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 The Freelancers Union (B) are -
Loyalty marketing
– Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Freelancers Horowitz 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 Freelancers Horowitz to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Freelancers Horowitz in the consumer business. Now Freelancers Horowitz can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Freelancers Horowitz can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Freelancers Horowitz 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, The Freelancers Union (B), 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
– Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Freelancers Horowitz 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 The Freelancers Union (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Freelancers Horowitz 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 Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Freelancers Horowitz is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Freelancers Union (B) 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Freelancers Horowitz to increase its market reach. Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Threats The Freelancers Union (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Freelancers Union (B) are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Freelancers Horowitz 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.
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 Freelancers Horowitz business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Freelancers Horowitz in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Environmental challenges
– Freelancers Horowitz 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. Freelancers Horowitz can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Freelancers Horowitz 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 The Freelancers Union (B) .
Increasing wage structure of Freelancers Horowitz
– 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 Freelancers Horowitz.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Freelancers Horowitz 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.
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. Freelancers Horowitz can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Freelancers Horowitz 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Freelancers Horowitz has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Freelancers Horowitz 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Freelancers Union (B) 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 The Freelancers Union (B) 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 The Freelancers Union (B) 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 The Freelancers Union (B) 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 The Freelancers Union (B) 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 Freelancers Horowitz needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
