Case Study Description of Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership
Reviews Rebecca Halstead's career history, detailing how, through her personal attributes, skills, experiences, challenges, and organizational practices she developed into a successful leader and commander in the U.S. Army. The case profiles her leadership style and philosophy. It examines her career strategies and rise through the ranks; strategies she used to deal with challenges faced as a woman in the military; how she turned around a troubled military unit; and how she dealt with a difficult boss who threatened her command of a 25,000 person combat mission.
Swot Analysis of "Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership" written by Boris Groysberg, Deborah Bell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Rebecca Military facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Gender, Government, Human resource management, Influence, Leadership, Leading teams, Strategy execution, Workspaces and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rebecca Military, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rebecca Military 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rebecca Military
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 Rebecca Military
Strengths Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rebecca Military in Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Rebecca Military 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 Boris Groysberg, Deborah Bell 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Rebecca Military in the sector have low bargaining power. Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Rebecca Military to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Rebecca Military has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rebecca Military to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rebecca Military 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Rebecca Military 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Rebecca Military has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rebecca Military 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Rebecca Military 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 Rebecca Military digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Rebecca Military 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Rebecca Military 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.
Organizational Resilience of Rebecca Military
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Rebecca Military does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Rebecca Military has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership 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.
Weaknesses Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Rebecca Military 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 - Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Boris Groysberg, Deborah Bell suggests that, Rebecca Military 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership, it seems that the employees of Rebecca Military don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Rebecca Military 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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 Rebecca Military 's lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Rebecca Military 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Rebecca Military 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Rebecca Military, firm in the HBR case study Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Rebecca Military 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rebecca Military 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 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 Rebecca Military supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Rebecca Military vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership are -
Buying journey improvements
– Rebecca Military can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Rebecca Military 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rebecca Military 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Rebecca Military has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Rebecca Military to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership case study. Rebecca Military can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rebecca Military to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rebecca Military 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 Rebecca Military to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Rebecca Military 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Rebecca Military can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Rebecca Military can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rebecca Military 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, Rebecca Military 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, Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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.
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 Rebecca Military in the consumer business. Now Rebecca Military can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Rebecca Military 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Rebecca Military to increase its market reach. Rebecca Military 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.
Threats Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Rebecca Military 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Rebecca Military 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.
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. Rebecca Military needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Rebecca Military in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Rebecca Military 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Rebecca Military 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Rebecca Military 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.
Environmental challenges
– Rebecca Military 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. Rebecca Military can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Rebecca Military 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership, Rebecca Military 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Rebecca Military with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Rebecca Military.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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 Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast 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 Rebecca Military needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.