All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality
Boards of directors represent the shareholders of publicly-traded companies, validating financial results, protecting their assets, and counseling the CEO. It's a demanding responsibility, requiring directors to learn as much as they can about a company so that their insights stand up alongside those of executives. That, at least, is the ideal; but is it anywhere close to being the reality? Sadly, no, argues veteran director and educator David R. Beatty. In a wide-ranging interview with two McKinsey authors, he describes where many boards are lacking; the importance of focusing on the 3Ts (talent, time and tone), and why adding the CFO to every board is an idea worth considering. In a sidebar, the merits of family-run firms' governance models are discussed.
Authors :: Jonathan Bailey, Tim Koller, David Beatty, Matt Fullbrook
Swot Analysis of "All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality" written by Jonathan Bailey, Tim Koller, David Beatty, Matt Fullbrook includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Boards Reality facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Boards Reality, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Boards Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Boards Reality
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 Boards Reality
Strengths All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Boards Reality in All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Boards Reality 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Boards Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Boards Reality in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Boards Reality digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Boards Reality 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Boards Reality is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Boards Reality has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Boards Reality has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Boards Reality to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Boards Reality to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Boards Reality is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Boards Reality 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 Boards Reality in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Boards Reality has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Boards Reality to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Boards Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Boards Reality is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Boards Reality 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Boards Reality 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Boards Reality 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Boards Reality is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality, it seems that the employees of Boards Reality 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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 Boards Reality has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Boards Reality 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 - All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Boards Reality, firm in the HBR case study All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Boards Reality products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Boards Reality needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Boards Reality 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality HBR case study mentions - Boards Reality 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.
Opportunities All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality | 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Boards Reality is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Boards Reality has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Boards Reality to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality case study. Boards Reality can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Boards Reality can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Boards Reality can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Boards Reality operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Boards Reality 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, All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality, 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. Boards Reality 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. Boards Reality 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Boards Reality 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Boards Reality 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.
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 Boards Reality in the consumer business. Now Boards Reality can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Boards Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Boards Reality to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Boards Reality can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Boards Reality 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 Boards Reality to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Boards Reality can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Boards Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality .
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. Boards Reality 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.
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 Boards Reality business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Boards Reality has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Boards Reality 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.
Increasing wage structure of Boards Reality
– 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 Boards Reality.
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 Boards Reality in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Boards Reality 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. Boards Reality can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Boards Reality needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Boards Reality 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Boards Reality 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.
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 Boards Reality.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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 All Aboard: Making Board Effectiveness a Reality 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 Boards Reality needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.