Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company
Henry Silva, a soon-to-be Columbia MBA graduate and aspiring change agent, wrestled with the decision about whether to join New Power LLC, an innovative start-up energy company, as the director of special projects. In this new capacity, he would be responsible for the transformation of the company culture with the goal of creating a more dynamic and productive work environment. What steps would be necessary to win over employees and to implement a successful change agenda?
Swot Analysis of "Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company" written by Todd D. Jick includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Silva Aspiring facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Change management, Entrepreneurship, Human resource management, Influence, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Silva Aspiring, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Silva Aspiring 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Silva Aspiring
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 Silva Aspiring
Strengths Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Silva Aspiring in Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Silva Aspiring digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Silva Aspiring 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Silva Aspiring is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Silva Aspiring 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 Todd D. Jick 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Silva Aspiring 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 Silva Aspiring
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Silva Aspiring does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Silva Aspiring is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Silva Aspiring 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Silva Aspiring is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Silva Aspiring in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Silva Aspiring 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 Silva Aspiring is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Silva Aspiring has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Silva Aspiring 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Silva Aspiring to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Silva Aspiring to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Todd D. Jick suggests that, Silva Aspiring 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Silva Aspiring 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. Silva Aspiring 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Silva Aspiring is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Silva Aspiring 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company, in the dynamic environment Silva Aspiring has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Silva Aspiring has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company HBR case study mentions - Silva Aspiring 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company, it seems that the employees of Silva Aspiring 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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 Silva Aspiring 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Silva Aspiring 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, Silva Aspiring 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company, is just above the industry average. Silva Aspiring 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company | 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Silva Aspiring 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Silva Aspiring can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Silva Aspiring 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Silva Aspiring has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Silva Aspiring to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company case study. Silva Aspiring can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Silva Aspiring 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Silva Aspiring 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 Silva Aspiring to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Silva Aspiring is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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.
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. Silva Aspiring can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Silva Aspiring can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Silva Aspiring 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Silva Aspiring 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Silva Aspiring to increase its market reach. Silva Aspiring 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Silva Aspiring can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Silva Aspiring operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company are -
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Silva Aspiring 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.
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. Silva Aspiring needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Silva Aspiring is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Silva Aspiring 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Silva Aspiring 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.
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 Silva Aspiring business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Silva Aspiring
– 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 Silva Aspiring.
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 Silva Aspiring 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 Silva Aspiring.
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. Silva Aspiring can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Silva Aspiring has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Silva Aspiring 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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 Henry Silva: Aspiring Change Agent for a Start-up Company 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 Silva Aspiring needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
