Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. A survey of top business executives from major international organizations found that 79% said it was extremely important to have leaders who act on behalf of the entire organization, not just their units. The rest said it was very important. Nearly 65% said they expected at least half of their senior and midlevel managers to behave as enterprise leaders -that is, executives who are as successful at serving the needs of the enterprise as they are at growing the units they head. The expectation that managers will know what's happening elsewhere in the enterprise is rising, authors Douglas A. Ready and M. Ellen Peebles write, but few organizations have been set up to support the development of such enterprise leaders. So how are managers learning to become effective enterprise leaders, and how can organizations encourage their development? The authors surveyed and interviewed scores of executives from the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and focused on three companies: Pfizer, Li & Fung, and Unilever. They found that regardless of the business or the location, enterprise leaders developed their capabilities in similar ways -through a combination of deliberate personal development, high-level mentoring, and opportunities afforded by their work that enabled strong unit performers to become even more effective as enterprise leaders. According to the authors, the essence of enterprise leadership lies in combining two often incompatible roles -those of builder and broker. That means executives need to build their unit's vision and integrate it into the wider corporate vision, clarifying where the enterprise is going and how their teams can best contribute, both within and beyond unit boundaries. They must build unit capabilities and share resources and business know-how across units to contribute to enterprisewide organizational capability. Balancing the goals of the unit with the broader interests of the enterprise can be difficult, the authors concede. Having come up the ranks in silos, managers acquire strong building skills -not the brokering skills top leaders said they needed. From their interviews, the authors identified six components of what they present as a mindset for the successful enterprise leader: a heightened sense of place; a broad sense of context; a sharp sense of perspective; a powerful sense of community; a deep sense of purpose; and an abiding sense of resiliency.
Swot Analysis of "Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders" written by Douglas A. Ready, M. Ellen Peebles includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Enterprise Leaders facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Enterprise Leaders, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Enterprise Leaders
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 Enterprise Leaders
Strengths Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Enterprise Leaders in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Enterprise Leaders
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Enterprise Leaders does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Enterprise Leaders has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Enterprise Leaders in the sector have low bargaining power. Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Enterprise Leaders to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Enterprise Leaders 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 Douglas A. Ready, M. Ellen Peebles 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Enterprise Leaders 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Enterprise Leaders to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Enterprise Leaders to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Enterprise Leaders is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Enterprise Leaders is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Enterprise Leaders digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Enterprise Leaders 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.
High brand equity
– Enterprise Leaders has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Enterprise Leaders to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders are -
Need for greater diversity
– Enterprise Leaders 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Enterprise Leaders 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Enterprise Leaders is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Enterprise Leaders products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Enterprise Leaders needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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 Enterprise Leaders 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Enterprise Leaders, firm in the HBR case study Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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, Enterprise Leaders 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Douglas A. Ready, M. Ellen Peebles suggests that, Enterprise Leaders 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders, 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Enterprise Leaders 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders, is just above the industry average. Enterprise Leaders 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.
Opportunities Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders | 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Enterprise Leaders 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Enterprise Leaders can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Enterprise Leaders has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Enterprise Leaders to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders case study. Enterprise Leaders can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Enterprise Leaders is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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.
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. Enterprise Leaders can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Enterprise Leaders can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Enterprise Leaders 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.
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 Enterprise Leaders 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Enterprise Leaders 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Enterprise Leaders can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Enterprise Leaders operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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 Enterprise Leaders in the consumer business. Now Enterprise Leaders can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Enterprise Leaders to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Enterprise Leaders 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.
Threats Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Enterprise Leaders has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Enterprise Leaders 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Enterprise Leaders 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
– Enterprise Leaders 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders .
Regulatory challenges
– Enterprise Leaders 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Enterprise Leaders 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.
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. Enterprise Leaders 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.
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 Enterprise Leaders in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Enterprise Leaders.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Enterprise Leaders 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 Enterprise Leaders is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Enterprise Leaders can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Enterprise Leaders 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. Enterprise Leaders can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders 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 Enterprise Leaders needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
