Swot Analysis of "Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B" written by John S. Haywood-Farmer includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that W12219 Beaton facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the W12219 Beaton, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which W12219 Beaton 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of W12219 Beaton
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 W12219 Beaton
Strengths Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of W12219 Beaton in Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For W12219 Beaton digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. W12219 Beaton 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that W12219 Beaton 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled W12219 Beaton to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped W12219 Beaton to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of W12219 Beaton in the sector have low bargaining power. Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps W12219 Beaton to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– W12219 Beaton 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
– W12219 Beaton is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– W12219 Beaton 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- W12219 Beaton 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 W12219 Beaton is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– W12219 Beaton has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. W12219 Beaton 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.
Innovation driven organization
– W12219 Beaton is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– W12219 Beaton 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 W12219 Beaton in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– W12219 Beaton has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled W12219 Beaton to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, W12219 Beaton is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B HBR case study mentions - W12219 Beaton 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at W12219 Beaton 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of W12219 Beaton is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. W12219 Beaton needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help W12219 Beaton 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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 W12219 Beaton 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, W12219 Beaton 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. W12219 Beaton 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.
Need for greater diversity
– W12219 Beaton 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as W12219 Beaton is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B, it seems that the employees of W12219 Beaton 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, W12219 Beaton 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.
Opportunities Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B | 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B are -
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. W12219 Beaton can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– W12219 Beaton 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– W12219 Beaton 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help W12219 Beaton to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help W12219 Beaton to increase its market reach. W12219 Beaton 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.
Buying journey improvements
– W12219 Beaton can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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.
Loyalty marketing
– W12219 Beaton 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, W12219 Beaton can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that W12219 Beaton operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
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 W12219 Beaton 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at W12219 Beaton 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, W12219 Beaton 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.
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. W12219 Beaton 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. W12219 Beaton 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for W12219 Beaton 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for W12219 Beaton 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B are -
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 W12219 Beaton in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– W12219 Beaton 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. W12219 Beaton can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 W12219 Beaton.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– W12219 Beaton 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, W12219 Beaton 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents W12219 Beaton with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 W12219 Beaton business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. W12219 Beaton 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B, W12219 Beaton 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 .
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. W12219 Beaton can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– W12219 Beaton 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that W12219 Beaton is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on W12219 Beaton 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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 Kelman & Beaton, Partners at Law B 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 W12219 Beaton needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
