Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks
This case follows the life of Al Gore, one of the most powerful vice-presidents in US history who, in 2000, failed to secure what is probably the most powerful job on earth - the presidency. It describes how he nonetheless reinvented himself after the defeat and built a successful and influential post-political career.
Swot Analysis of "Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks" written by Frederic Godart includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Gore Al facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Influence, Leadership, Sustainability and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gore Al, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gore Al 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gore Al
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 Gore Al
Strengths Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gore Al in Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gore Al in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gore Al has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gore Al 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Gore Al is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Gore Al 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 Gore Al is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gore Al 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
– Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gore Al to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gore Al to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Gore Al has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gore Al to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gore Al in the sector have low bargaining power. Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gore Al to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Gore Al 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 Gore Al in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Gore Al is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Frederic Godart can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gore Al digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gore Al 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gore Al 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks, is just above the industry average. Gore Al 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gore Al 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 - Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Gore Al 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gore Al 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gore Al products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gore Al needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks HBR case study mentions - Gore Al 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, Gore Al 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. Gore Al 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Gore Al is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Gore Al has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Gore Al 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks | 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks are -
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. Gore Al can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gore Al 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gore Al to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gore Al 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, Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Gore Al 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.
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 Gore Al in the consumer business. Now Gore Al can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gore Al 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Gore Al can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gore Al 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 Gore Al to increase its market reach. Gore Al 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 Gore Al 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gore Al 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.
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. Gore Al 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. Gore Al 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Gore Al 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gore Al can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Gore Al business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Gore Al in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gore Al 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks, Gore Al 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 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.
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. Gore Al needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gore Al 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gore Al 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.
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. Gore Al 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Gore Al 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gore Al 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gore Al has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gore Al 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Gore Al with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Gore Al needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
