IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship
IBM's transformation into a globally integrated enterprise (GIE) began with a conviction about what should never change. Since its founding in 1911, the company operated under a set of principles articulated by founder Thomas Watson and became known for a strong culture and a commitment to fairness and social responsibility. As IBM entered its second century, it was appropriate to take a fresh look at its values while remaining unwavering in ethics, integrity, and-to use the twenty-first century word-the highest standards of corporate citizenship. All of this could be done with strategic use of IBM technology and innovation. Yet IBMers in a variety of businesses and geographies also wanted the company to do even more. Members of the fifth Integration and Values Team (IVT5) pondered this and other global citizenship possibilities, reviewing how people were developed and worked as the transition to the GIE was underway.
Swot Analysis of "IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship" written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Citizenship Gie facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, IT and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Citizenship Gie, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Citizenship Gie 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Citizenship Gie
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 Citizenship Gie
Strengths IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Citizenship Gie in IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Citizenship Gie 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.
Organizational Resilience of Citizenship Gie
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Citizenship Gie does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Citizenship Gie 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Citizenship Gie digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Citizenship Gie 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.
Learning organization
- Citizenship Gie 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 Citizenship Gie is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Citizenship Gie has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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.
High brand equity
– Citizenship Gie has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Citizenship Gie to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Citizenship Gie is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Citizenship Gie 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 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Citizenship Gie in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Citizenship Gie in the sector have low bargaining power. IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Citizenship Gie to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Citizenship Gie to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Citizenship Gie to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship HBR case study mentions - Citizenship Gie 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 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 Citizenship Gie supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Citizenship Gie vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Citizenship Gie is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Citizenship Gie 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Citizenship Gie 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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 Citizenship Gie has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship, it seems that the employees of Citizenship Gie 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship, in the dynamic environment Citizenship Gie has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Citizenship Gie has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggests that, Citizenship Gie 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Citizenship Gie 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Citizenship Gie 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.
Opportunities IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship | 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Citizenship Gie can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Citizenship Gie operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Citizenship Gie can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Citizenship Gie can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Citizenship Gie 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, IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Citizenship Gie 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Citizenship Gie to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Citizenship Gie 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Citizenship Gie 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.
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. Citizenship Gie can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Citizenship Gie in the consumer business. Now Citizenship Gie can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Citizenship Gie can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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.
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 Citizenship Gie 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Citizenship Gie 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 Citizenship Gie to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Citizenship Gie 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Citizenship Gie to increase its market reach. Citizenship Gie 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship are -
Increasing wage structure of Citizenship Gie
– 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 Citizenship Gie.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship, Citizenship Gie 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 .
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. Citizenship Gie can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Citizenship Gie in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Citizenship Gie 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Citizenship Gie 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship .
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Citizenship Gie with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Citizenship Gie 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Citizenship Gie 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Citizenship Gie 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Citizenship Gie is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Citizenship Gie 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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 IBM Values and Corporate Citizenship 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 Citizenship Gie needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
