HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker)
How can you transform yourself from a good manager into an extraordinary leader? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance. This collection includes these best-selling HBR articles: featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive" by Peter F. Drucker, "What Makes a Leader?" "What Leaders Really Do," "The Work of Leadership," "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" "Crucibles of Leadership," "Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve," "Seven Transformations of Leadership," "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership," and "In Praise of the Incomplete Leader."
Authors :: Harvard Business Review, Peter F. Drucker, Daniel Goleman, William W. George
Swot Analysis of "HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker)" written by Harvard Business Review, Peter F. Drucker, Daniel Goleman, William W. George includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Leadership Drucker facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication, Emotional intelligence, Influence, Leadership, Leadership development, Managing people and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Leadership Drucker, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Leadership Drucker 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Leadership Drucker
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 Leadership Drucker
Strengths HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Leadership Drucker in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Leadership Drucker has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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.
Learning organization
- Leadership Drucker 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 Leadership Drucker is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Leadership Drucker in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Leadership Drucker in the sector have low bargaining power. HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Leadership Drucker to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Leadership Drucker 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 Leadership Drucker digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Leadership Drucker 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Leadership Drucker 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Leadership Drucker to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Leadership Drucker to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Leadership Drucker is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Leadership Drucker 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 Leadership Drucker in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Leadership Drucker is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Leadership Drucker 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. Leadership Drucker 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Leadership Drucker has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Leadership Drucker is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Leadership Drucker 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Leadership Drucker 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Leadership Drucker has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Leadership Drucker is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Leadership Drucker needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Leadership Drucker to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Leadership Drucker is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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 Leadership Drucker 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Leadership Drucker 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) HBR case study mentions - Leadership Drucker 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.
Opportunities HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) | 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Leadership Drucker 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Leadership Drucker to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Leadership Drucker has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Leadership Drucker to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) case study. Leadership Drucker can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Leadership Drucker can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Leadership Drucker can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Leadership Drucker is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Leadership Drucker 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Leadership Drucker 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Leadership Drucker 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Leadership Drucker 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 Leadership Drucker to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Leadership Drucker 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Leadership Drucker to increase its market reach. Leadership Drucker 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Leadership Drucker can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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.
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. Leadership Drucker can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Leadership Drucker 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) .
Increasing wage structure of Leadership Drucker
– 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 Leadership Drucker.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Leadership Drucker 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. Leadership Drucker can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Leadership Drucker is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Leadership Drucker with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Leadership Drucker has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Leadership Drucker needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Leadership Drucker business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. Leadership Drucker needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Leadership Drucker.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Leadership Drucker 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.
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. Leadership Drucker can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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 HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker) 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 Leadership Drucker needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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