Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre
A director within the leadership development program of a large multinational organization must decide how to manage a very difficult conversation she must have with her assistant director. The assistant director, who is older and more experienced (although less educated), interviewed for the director's position and didn't get it. The assistant director has never been happy reporting to her much younger boss, and has felt consistently left out of major decisions. The assistant director had confronted the director about her feelings and threatened to resign. How should the director handle this difficult conversation?
Swot Analysis of "Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre" written by Michael Sider, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Director Assistant facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Conflict, Developing employees, Manufacturing and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Director Assistant, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Director Assistant 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Director Assistant
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 Director Assistant
Strengths Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Director Assistant in Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Director Assistant 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Director Assistant is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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.
Analytics focus
– Director Assistant 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 Michael Sider, Ken Mark 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.
Training and development
– Director Assistant has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Director Assistant in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Director Assistant 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Director Assistant in the sector have low bargaining power. Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Director Assistant to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Director Assistant is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Director Assistant is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Director Assistant in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Director Assistant
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Director Assistant does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Director Assistant is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre, is just above the industry average. Director Assistant needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Director Assistant 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. Director Assistant 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Director Assistant products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Director Assistant needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Director Assistant is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Director Assistant needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Director Assistant to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Director Assistant 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Director Assistant 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 - Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Director Assistant supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Director Assistant vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Director Assistant is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre, 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Director Assistant 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Director Assistant 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.
Opportunities Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre | 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre are -
Loyalty marketing
– Director Assistant 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Director Assistant 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Director Assistant can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Director Assistant 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Director Assistant 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 Director Assistant 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. Director Assistant can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Director Assistant 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 Director Assistant 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Director Assistant 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Director Assistant has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Director Assistant to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre case study. Director Assistant can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Director Assistant 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Director Assistant 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, Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Director Assistant 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. Director Assistant 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.
Threats Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre are -
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. Director Assistant 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Director Assistant 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Director Assistant 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.
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 Director Assistant in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Director Assistant can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Director Assistant 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Director Assistant 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre .
Increasing wage structure of Director Assistant
– 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 Director Assistant.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Director Assistant has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Director Assistant 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.
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 Director Assistant.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Director Assistant with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Director Assistant is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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 Carnegie Industrial: The Leadership Development Centre 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 Director Assistant needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
