Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted
Every generation of managers experiments with new organizational forms-new business models and the organizational structures and management processes required to support them. Much of the current experimentation with business and organizational models is occurring in knowledge-intensive industries such as biotechnology, computers, telecommunications, and medical and scientific equipment. The principal business model emerging in these and similar industries can be called market exploration. Market exploration is a firm's pursuit of opportunities created by intersecting technologies and markets. The market exploration process is complex, involving technology development, product development, and commercialization in collaboration with customers and other firms, as well as involving the orderly development of markets that have large but unknown potential. Firms that want to be effective at market exploration must organize specifically for innovation-they must be able to build and manage an I-form organization. This article shows how many firms are moving towards and improving the I-form organization and discusses its purpose, key features, and benefits.
Swot Analysis of "Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted" written by Isaac Getz includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Exploration Form facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational structure and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Exploration Form, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Exploration Form 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Exploration Form
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 Exploration Form
Strengths Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Exploration Form in Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Exploration Form is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Exploration Form is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Exploration Form in the sector have low bargaining power. Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Exploration Form to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Exploration Form 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.
Learning organization
- Exploration Form 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 Exploration Form is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Exploration Form 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Exploration Form 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 Isaac Getz 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Exploration Form in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Exploration Form has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Exploration Form to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Exploration Form has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Exploration Form 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Exploration Form to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Exploration Form to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted are -
Need for greater diversity
– Exploration Form 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Exploration Form 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted, 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Exploration Form products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Exploration Form needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Exploration Form 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Exploration Form 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. Exploration Form 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Isaac Getz suggests that, Exploration Form 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Exploration Form 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 - Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted HBR case study mentions - Exploration Form 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Exploration Form is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Exploration Form 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.
Opportunities Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted | 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Exploration Form can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
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. Exploration Form can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Exploration Form 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Exploration Form 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Exploration Form 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Exploration Form 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Exploration Form 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 Exploration Form 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Exploration Form 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Exploration Form to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Exploration Form is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Exploration Form 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 Exploration Form to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Exploration Form can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Exploration Form 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.
Threats Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Exploration Form 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Exploration Form 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.
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. Exploration Form needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Exploration Form 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. Exploration Form can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted, Exploration Form 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 .
Increasing wage structure of Exploration Form
– 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 Exploration Form.
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. Exploration Form can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Exploration Form 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Exploration Form has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Exploration Form 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Exploration Form with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Exploration Form 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Exploration Form 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Liberating Leadership: How the Initiative-Freeing Radical Organizational Form Has Been Successfully Adopted 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 Exploration Form needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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