St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership
In May 2013, the founder and executive director of the St. John the Compassionate Mission, a faith-based, non-profit social service organization located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, needs to plan for his retirement. He has been the driving force behind the organization for the past 27 years, and it reflects his vision that meaningful work helps people get off welfare, attaining dignity and a sense of personal value in the process. To that end, the Mission provides opportunities for everyone in the community to work through employment in one of its two social enterprises - a thrift store and a bakery - or through volunteer opportunities. Because its organizational culture emphasizes collaboration and consultation not only with its staff leadership council and board of directors but also with all members of the community, its decision making has been fluid and in response to perceived needs rather than forward planning. Now he needs to ensure an effective succession that protects the organization's culture, values and beliefs and ensures the safety of a vulnerable population. Author Colleen Sharen is affiliated with the University of Western Ontario.
Swot Analysis of "St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership" written by Colleen Sharen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Compassionate St facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture, Succession planning and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Compassionate St, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Compassionate St 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Compassionate St
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 Compassionate St
Strengths St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Compassionate St in St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Compassionate St in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Compassionate St is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Compassionate St has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Compassionate St 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Compassionate St 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Compassionate St 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Compassionate St has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Compassionate St 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Compassionate St to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Compassionate St to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Compassionate St in the sector have low bargaining power. St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Compassionate St to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Compassionate St is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Compassionate St 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Compassionate St digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Compassionate St 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.
Weaknesses St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership are -
Need for greater diversity
– Compassionate St 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Compassionate St, firm in the HBR case study St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Compassionate St 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 - St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 Compassionate St has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Compassionate St 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 Compassionate St 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership, in the dynamic environment Compassionate St has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Compassionate St has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Compassionate St 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Colleen Sharen suggests that, Compassionate St 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Compassionate St is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 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.
Opportunities St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership | 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership are -
Loyalty marketing
– Compassionate St 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Compassionate St 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, Compassionate St can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Compassionate St operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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 Compassionate St 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Compassionate St 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.
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 Compassionate St in the consumer business. Now Compassionate St can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Compassionate St 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 Compassionate St to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Compassionate St 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Compassionate St 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 Compassionate St 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Compassionate St is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Compassionate St can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Compassionate St 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, St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Compassionate St.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Compassionate St will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Regulatory challenges
– Compassionate St 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Compassionate St with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Compassionate St 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Compassionate St 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 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. Compassionate St needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Compassionate St can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Compassionate St 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.
Increasing wage structure of Compassionate St
– 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 Compassionate St.
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.
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 Compassionate St 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 St. John the Compassionate Mission: Organizational Culture and Leadership 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 Compassionate St needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.