Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?
Real strategy-in companies and in our lives-is created through hundreds of everyday decisions. As you live your life from day to day, how can you make sure you're heading in the right direction? The authors argue that the answer lies in taking a close look at where your resources are allocated. In this excerpt from their book, How Will You Measure Your Life? (Harper Business, 2012), they show that If your resources aren't supporting the strategy you've decided upon, you are not implementing that strategy.
Authors :: Clayton Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon
Swot Analysis of "Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?" written by Clayton Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Harper Day facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Harper Day, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Harper Day 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Harper Day
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 Harper Day
Strengths Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Harper Day in Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Harper Day 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
– Harper Day 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 Clayton Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Harper Day is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Harper Day 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Harper Day is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Harper Day
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Harper Day does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Harper Day 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 Harper Day in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Harper Day 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Harper Day is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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 Harper Day 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 Harper Day in the sector have low bargaining power. Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Harper Day to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Harper Day 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 Harper Day is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? are -
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 Harper Day supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Harper Day vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?, is just above the industry average. Harper Day 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Harper Day is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Harper Day needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Harper Day to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Harper Day 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Harper Day is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? HBR case study mentions - Harper Day 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Harper Day 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Harper Day 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. Harper Day 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?, it seems that the employees of Harper Day 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Harper Day, firm in the HBR case study Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? | 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Harper Day can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Harper Day can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Harper Day 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Harper Day to increase its market reach. Harper Day 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.
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 Harper Day in the consumer business. Now Harper Day can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Harper Day 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 Harper Day 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 Harper Day to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Harper Day 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, Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Harper Day 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Harper Day 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.
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 Harper Day 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.
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. Harper Day 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. Harper Day 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Harper Day 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.
Threats Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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.
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. Harper Day can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Harper Day business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Harper Day
– 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 Harper Day.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Harper Day 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Harper Day 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.
Environmental challenges
– Harper Day needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Harper Day can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is?, Harper Day 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Harper Day 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.
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 Harper Day in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Harper Day 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? .
Regulatory challenges
– Harper Day 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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 Is Your Strategy What You Say It Is? 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 Harper Day needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
