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 - – technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, 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 -
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Enterprise Leaders 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 Enterprise Leaders in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Enterprise Leaders is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Enterprise Leaders has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Enterprise Leaders 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.
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.
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.
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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Enterprise Leaders 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 Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Enterprise Leaders in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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.
Learning organization
- Enterprise Leaders 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 Enterprise Leaders is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Enterprise Leaders 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. Enterprise Leaders 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Enterprise Leaders has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
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 Enterprise Leaders supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Enterprise Leaders vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders, it seems that the employees of Enterprise Leaders don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
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.
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.
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.
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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Enterprise Leaders 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.
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 -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Enterprise Leaders 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.
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.
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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Enterprise Leaders 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.
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. Enterprise Leaders 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. Enterprise Leaders 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.
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.
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.
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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Enterprise Leaders to increase its market reach. Enterprise Leaders 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.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Enterprise Leaders 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 Enterprise Leaders to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Enterprise Leaders 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, Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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 Enterprise Leaders business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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. Enterprise Leaders needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.