Case Study Description of House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change
The owner and general manager of a large retail establishment faced a dilemma about whether his long-time yard manager was still the right person for the job. The business increasingly depended on providing superior customer service in order to compete in the market. Recently, the owner had placed a personal friend in the operation as an assistant to the yard manager. This new addition had shown a real talent for developing employees and driving performance improvements. As a result, customer service feedback had drastically improved. The owner realized that the assistant had become the real leader of the yard. He wondered how to keep the momentum of the changes going while still showing due respect to a loyal employee.
Swot Analysis of "House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change" written by Karen MacMillan, Meredith Woodwark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Yard Owner facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Yard Owner, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Yard Owner 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Yard Owner
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 Yard Owner
Strengths House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Yard Owner in House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Yard Owner 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Yard Owner in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Yard Owner is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Yard Owner has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Yard Owner is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 brand equity
– Yard Owner has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Yard Owner to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Yard Owner 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 Yard Owner is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Yard Owner 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Yard Owner 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
– Yard Owner 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Yard Owner 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 Karen MacMillan, Meredith Woodwark 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Yard Owner digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Yard Owner 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Yard Owner 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. Yard Owner 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Yard Owner is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Yard Owner 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 Yard Owner 's lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Yard Owner 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 Yard Owner, firm in the HBR case study House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Yard Owner products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Yard Owner needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Yard Owner 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 - House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Yard Owner is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Yard Owner needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Yard Owner to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Yard Owner 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Yard Owner 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.
Opportunities House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change | 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Yard Owner 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.
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 Yard Owner 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Yard Owner can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Yard Owner 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
– Yard Owner 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Yard Owner has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Yard Owner to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change case study. Yard Owner can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Yard Owner can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Yard Owner 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. Yard Owner 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Yard Owner 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Yard Owner can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Yard Owner operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Yard Owner 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, House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Yard Owner in the consumer business. Now Yard Owner can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Yard Owner can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 Yard Owner.
Environmental challenges
– Yard Owner 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. Yard Owner can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Yard Owner high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Yard Owner is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Yard Owner 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Yard Owner 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change .
Regulatory challenges
– Yard Owner 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.
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 Yard Owner in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Yard Owner 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.
Increasing wage structure of Yard Owner
– 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 Yard Owner.
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. Yard Owner can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Yard Owner with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change, Yard Owner 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 House, Hearth and Home: Managing Leadership Change 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 Yard Owner needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
