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 - – technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, 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 -
Diverse revenue streams
– Gore Al is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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.
Organizational Resilience of Gore Al
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Gore Al does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
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.
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.
Training and development
– Gore Al has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Gore Al supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gore Al vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
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.
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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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 Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gore Al is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Gore Al 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.
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.
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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Gore Al 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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
Buying journey improvements
– Gore Al can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gore Al 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 Gore Al to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gore Al is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks 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.
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.
Loyalty marketing
– Gore Al 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.
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. Gore Al can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gore Al has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Gore Al to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Al Gore: Surviving Career Setbacks case study. Gore Al can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 -
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.
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 Gore Al.
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.
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 .
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.
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. Gore Al can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Gore Al 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. Gore Al can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gore Al is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Gore Al
– 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 Gore Al.
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.
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.