Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global
Since the 1980's, Procter & Gamble had leveraged its purpose, values, and principles (PVP) to create a global company. When P&G faced difficult times in 2000, the new CEO, A.G. Lafley, leveraged the PVP to drive P&G's turnaround, integrate global operations, and guide decision-making in all facets of the business. But the Gillette acquisition posed a new challenge.
Swot Analysis of "Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global" written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Matthew Bird includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Pvp Procter facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Collaboration, International business, Leadership development, Manufacturing, Mergers & acquisitions and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pvp Procter, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pvp Procter 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pvp Procter
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 Pvp Procter
Strengths Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pvp Procter in Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Pvp Procter
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Pvp Procter does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Pvp Procter in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pvp Procter 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Pvp Procter is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Pvp Procter 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 Pvp Procter in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Pvp Procter 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Pvp Procter has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pvp Procter in the sector have low bargaining power. Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Pvp Procter to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Pvp Procter 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 Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Matthew Bird 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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
– Pvp Procter is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Pvp Procter 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.
Weaknesses Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global, in the dynamic environment Pvp Procter has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Pvp Procter has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global, is just above the industry average. Pvp Procter 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Pvp Procter is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Pvp Procter 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Pvp Procter 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Pvp Procter is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Pvp Procter needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Pvp Procter to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Pvp Procter supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Pvp Procter vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Pvp Procter is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Pvp Procter 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Pvp Procter, firm in the HBR case study Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global | 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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 Pvp Procter 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.
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. Pvp Procter can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pvp Procter 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.
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 Pvp Procter in the consumer business. Now Pvp Procter can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Pvp Procter can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Pvp Procter operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Pvp Procter 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Pvp Procter to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Pvp Procter 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Pvp Procter can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Pvp Procter 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Pvp Procter 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Pvp Procter can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Pvp Procter 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pvp Procter to increase its market reach. Pvp Procter 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.
Threats Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global are -
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 Pvp Procter.
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. Pvp Procter needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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
– Pvp Procter 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. Pvp Procter can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Pvp Procter
– 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 Pvp Procter.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pvp Procter 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global .
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 Pvp Procter business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Pvp Procter is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Pvp Procter 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Pvp Procter 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.
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 Pvp Procter in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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 Procter & Gamble in the 21st Century (A): Becoming Truly Global 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 Pvp Procter needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
