Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication
Both popular and social science literature are replete with recommendations for enhancing communication effectiveness, typically defined as improving the clarity and impact of the spoken and written word. However, managing internal organizational processes and external market competitiveness often requires a different communication strategy, specifically silence and non-disclosure, while adhering to statutory regulations. This paper summarizes the rationale for communication prohibitions, highlights counter forces mitigating their intended effects, and offers recommendations for successful implementation. The three major counter forces are employee motivation and perception, changing socio-cultural norms, and organizational structures reflecting virtual teams and project teams. The eight recommendations for combating these forces are subsumed under one of two categories: creating an organizational culture supporting prohibitions, and executing the prohibitions with a minimum of employee resistance. In summary, employees charged with maintaining secrecy and adhering to non-disclosure prohibitions must view those restrictions as reasonable, warranted, equitable, and legal.
Swot Analysis of "Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication" written by Lyle Sussman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Prohibitions Disclosure facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Human resource management and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Prohibitions Disclosure, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Prohibitions Disclosure
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 Prohibitions Disclosure
Strengths Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Prohibitions Disclosure in Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Prohibitions Disclosure in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Prohibitions Disclosure
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Prohibitions Disclosure does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Prohibitions Disclosure digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Prohibitions Disclosure 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
- Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Prohibitions Disclosure is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Prohibitions Disclosure has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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.
Training and development
– Prohibitions Disclosure has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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
– Prohibitions Disclosure has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Prohibitions Disclosure to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Prohibitions Disclosure is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Prohibitions Disclosure in the sector have low bargaining power. Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Prohibitions Disclosure 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
– Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Prohibitions Disclosure to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Prohibitions Disclosure to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Prohibitions Disclosure, firm in the HBR case study Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication, in the dynamic environment Prohibitions Disclosure has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Prohibitions Disclosure has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Prohibitions Disclosure 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. Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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 Prohibitions Disclosure 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication, it seems that the employees of Prohibitions Disclosure 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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 Prohibitions Disclosure has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Prohibitions Disclosure supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Prohibitions Disclosure vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication HBR case study mentions - Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication, is just above the industry average. Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication | 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication are -
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. Prohibitions Disclosure 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. Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Prohibitions Disclosure to increase its market reach. Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Prohibitions Disclosure can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Prohibitions Disclosure operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
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. Prohibitions Disclosure 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
– Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Prohibitions Disclosure to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Prohibitions Disclosure can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Prohibitions Disclosure business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
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. Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Prohibitions Disclosure in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Prohibitions Disclosure with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Prohibitions Disclosure is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Prohibitions Disclosure 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication .
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication, Prohibitions Disclosure 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 .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Prohibitions Disclosure 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.
Increasing wage structure of Prohibitions Disclosure
– 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 Prohibitions Disclosure.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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 Disclosure, Leaks, and Slips: Issues and Strategies for Prohibiting Employee Communication 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 Prohibitions Disclosure needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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