What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?
All organizations have some form of institutional logic defining what is taken for granted and what is appropriate or legitimate behavior. Most banks, for example, tend to be driven by a financial logic focused on profit maximization, which has served shareholders well, but if taken to the extreme, can lead to damaging consequences, as evidenced by the crisis. Drawing on extensive research the author has conducted into community and green banking start-ups in the United States, Almandoz finds that the greater the proportion of founding directors with financial and banking experience, the more likely those founding teams are to pursue profit-maximizing goals rather than demonstrate a meaningful commitment to a community; they hesitate more in their commitment to start a bank, as well as abandon the team for self-interested reasons. As banks seek to redeem themselves in light of the reckless mismanagement that destabilized the entire global economy, the author draws out several lessons for creating a new community bank, which serve as useful reminders for any business seeking to reconcile its mission with the needs of customers, while also reconnecting with communities in vital and lasting ways.
Swot Analysis of "What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?" written by Juan Almandoz includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Logic Community facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Leadership and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Logic Community, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Logic Community 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Logic Community
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 Logic Community
Strengths What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Logic Community in What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Logic Community 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 Logic Community is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Logic Community in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Logic Community to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Logic Community to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Logic Community 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Logic Community 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Logic Community digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Logic Community 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Logic Community has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Logic Community 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.
High brand equity
– Logic Community has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Logic Community to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Logic Community has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Logic Community 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 recruit top talent
– Logic Community is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Logic Community has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? 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.
Weaknesses What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Logic Community 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Logic Community 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Logic Community, firm in the HBR case study What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Logic Community is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Logic Community needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Logic Community to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? HBR case study mentions - Logic Community 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Logic Community 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. Logic Community 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Logic Community 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Logic Community 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 - What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?, it seems that the employees of Logic Community 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?, is just above the industry average. Logic Community 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? | 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? are -
Manufacturing automation
– Logic Community can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Loyalty marketing
– Logic Community 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Logic Community 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Logic Community to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Logic Community can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Logic Community 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Logic Community 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Logic Community has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Logic Community to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? case study. Logic Community can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Logic Community 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, What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Logic Community 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Logic Community can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Logic Community operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Logic Community 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Logic Community 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 Logic Community can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? are -
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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 Logic Community in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Logic Community 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.
Increasing wage structure of Logic Community
– 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 Logic Community.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Logic Community 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.
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. Logic Community can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Logic Community is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Logic Community 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Logic Community with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Logic Community 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.
Environmental challenges
– Logic Community 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. Logic Community can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm?, Logic Community may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Logic Community has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Logic Community 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? 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 What Are the Logics Driving Your Firm? 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 Logic Community needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.