The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader
In 2012, the World Bank faced important questions in terms of its future strategy and mission. Should the Bank continue to focus on micro-level development initiatives, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), or return to traditional macro-level financial support? Was the Bank's role as a source of funds for developing countries still relevant? Should emerging market nations be given a greater role in the governance structure? Most importantly, was Jim Yong Kim, a US national, the right choice to lead the Bank, in preference to highly qualified candidates from developing nations?
Swot Analysis of "The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader" written by Lakshmi Iyer, Ian McKown Cornell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Bank Nations facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economics, Emerging markets, Financial management, Government, Leadership and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bank Nations, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bank Nations 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bank Nations
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 Bank Nations
Strengths The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bank Nations in The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bank Nations is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Bank Nations has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bank Nations to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bank Nations to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bank Nations to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Bank Nations has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Bank Nations is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bank Nations is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bank Nations digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bank Nations 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bank Nations 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Bank Nations 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Bank Nations is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 Bank Nations in the sector have low bargaining power. The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bank Nations to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bank Nations is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Bank Nations needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bank Nations to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 Bank Nations 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader, is just above the industry average. Bank Nations 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader, in the dynamic environment Bank Nations has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bank Nations has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bank Nations 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader, it seems that the employees of Bank Nations 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bank Nations is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bank Nations is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Bank Nations products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Bank Nations needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 Bank Nations has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader | 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bank Nations 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bank Nations is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 Bank Nations has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Bank Nations to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader case study. Bank Nations can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Bank Nations 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. Bank Nations 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
– Bank Nations 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bank Nations 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 Bank Nations to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bank Nations 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bank Nations 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Bank Nations 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bank Nations to increase its market reach. Bank Nations 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.
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. Bank Nations can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bank Nations 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, Bank Nations can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bank Nations operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Threats The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader are -
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 Bank Nations business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bank Nations has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bank Nations 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bank Nations 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bank Nations is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Bank Nations
– 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 Bank Nations.
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. Bank Nations can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bank Nations 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.
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. Bank Nations 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bank Nations 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Bank Nations with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bank Nations 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.
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. Bank Nations needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Bank Nations 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 The World Bank in 2012: Choosing a Leader 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 Bank Nations needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.