Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman
In this wide-ranging interview, Unilever CEO Paul Polman describes how his company is putting the world's biggest problems-from sanitation issues to poverty to youth self esteem-at the very core of its business model. He describes the company's Sustainable Living Plan, which aims to reduce environmental impact, improve health and well-being and enhance livelihoods around the world. He shows that this approach not only makes enormous sense for shareholders and brings costs down, it drives up employee engagement levels and enables a company to embrace new business opportunities.
Swot Analysis of "Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman" written by Paul Polman, Karen Christensen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Polman Paul facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Managing organizations, Marketing, Social responsibility and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Polman Paul, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Polman Paul 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Polman Paul
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 Polman Paul
Strengths Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Polman Paul in Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Polman Paul in the sector have low bargaining power. Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Polman Paul to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Polman Paul has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Polman Paul 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.
Organizational Resilience of Polman Paul
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Polman Paul does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Polman Paul is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Polman Paul has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Polman Paul to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Polman Paul is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Polman Paul 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.
Training and development
– Polman Paul has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Polman Paul 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman - 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
– Polman Paul is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Polman Paul digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Polman Paul 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.
Weaknesses Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman, in the dynamic environment Polman Paul has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Polman Paul has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Polman Paul supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Polman Paul vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Polman Paul 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Polman Paul 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 - Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Polman Paul has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Polman Paul, firm in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Polman Paul is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman, is just above the industry average. Polman Paul 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Polman Paul 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Polman Paul 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman, it seems that the employees of Polman Paul 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.
Opportunities Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman | 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Polman Paul 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Polman Paul to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Polman Paul 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Polman Paul 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.
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 Polman Paul in the consumer business. Now Polman Paul can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Polman Paul has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Polman Paul 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Polman Paul can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Polman Paul operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Polman Paul to increase its market reach. Polman Paul 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Polman Paul 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Polman Paul can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Polman Paul can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Polman Paul 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Polman Paul 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.
Threats Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman are -
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. Polman Paul needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Polman Paul 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman .
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 Polman Paul in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Polman Paul 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Polman Paul has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Polman Paul 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Polman Paul 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.
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. Polman Paul can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Polman Paul 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Polman Paul is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Polman Paul with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Polman Paul 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. Polman Paul can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Increasing wage structure of Polman Paul
– 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 Polman Paul.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Thought Leader Interview: Paul Polman 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 Polman Paul needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.