Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc.
Mark J. Howell is president of Brightpoint Americas, with responsibility for operations in North, Central, and South America. Having been with Brightpoint, Inc. since 1994, he has served in a variety of executive positions, including executive vice-president of Finance, chief financial officer, treasurer, secretary of the company, chief operating officer, and president. Before joining Brightpoint, Howell served as corporate controller for ADESA Corp. and was an accountant with Ernst & Young LLP prior to that. He is active in the Indianapolis, Indiana, community, serving on the board of trustees of Brebeuf Jesuit High School and The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, as well as the board of directors of the St. Vincent Foundation. A member of the University of Notre Dame Sorin Society and serving on the board of directors of CTIA Wireless Foundation, Howell is a recognized leader in the cellular telecommunications industry, having received the 2001 Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association President's Award.
Swot Analysis of "Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc." written by Catherine M. Dalton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Brightpoint Howell facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization,
technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc.
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brightpoint Howell, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brightpoint Howell 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brightpoint Howell
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 Brightpoint Howell
Strengths Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brightpoint Howell in Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Brightpoint Howell
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Brightpoint Howell does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Brightpoint Howell has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brightpoint Howell to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Brightpoint Howell to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Brightpoint Howell to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Brightpoint Howell has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Brightpoint Howell 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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.
Learning organization
- Brightpoint Howell 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 Brightpoint Howell is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Brightpoint Howell 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Brightpoint Howell in the sector have low bargaining power. Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Brightpoint Howell to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Brightpoint Howell 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Brightpoint Howell 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Brightpoint Howell 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 Brightpoint Howell in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Brightpoint Howell is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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.
Weaknesses Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Brightpoint Howell has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Brightpoint Howell is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc., 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brightpoint Howell, firm in the HBR case study Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Brightpoint Howell 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Brightpoint Howell 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Brightpoint Howell products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Brightpoint Howell needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. HBR case study mentions - Brightpoint Howell 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc., is just above the industry average. Brightpoint Howell 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Brightpoint Howell 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, Brightpoint Howell 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. | 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Brightpoint Howell 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Brightpoint Howell can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Brightpoint Howell 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.
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. Brightpoint Howell 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. Brightpoint Howell 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Brightpoint Howell 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Brightpoint Howell can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Brightpoint Howell 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 Brightpoint Howell to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Brightpoint Howell is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Brightpoint Howell 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Brightpoint Howell has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Brightpoint Howell 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Brightpoint Howell has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Brightpoint Howell to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. case study. Brightpoint Howell can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Brightpoint Howell to increase its market reach. Brightpoint Howell 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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. Brightpoint Howell 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Brightpoint Howell with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Brightpoint Howell needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Brightpoint Howell
– 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 Brightpoint Howell.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brightpoint Howell 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, Brightpoint Howell 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Brightpoint Howell is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Brightpoint Howell 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.
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.
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. Brightpoint Howell can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Brightpoint Howell.
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 Brightpoint Howell in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Brightpoint Howell business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Executive Focus: Values, Relationships, and Organizational Culture: Principled Leadership at Brightpoint, Inc. 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 Brightpoint Howell needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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