10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs
The current changes affecting society demand that workers acquire new skills to navigate the emerging environment. In this article, researchers from the Institute for the Future share the findings of a recent study carried out in collaboration with entrepreneurs, academics and business leaders, in which they explore the implications of these changes on the nature of work and careers. They list 10 specific new skills that can help workers achieve success in the next decade. This holds important implications for individuals and businesses alike regarding future organizational forms and lifelong learning.
Swot Analysis of "10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs" written by Devin Fidler, Marina Gorbis includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Skills Workers facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Skills Workers, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Skills Workers 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Skills Workers
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 Skills Workers
Strengths 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Skills Workers in 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Skills Workers has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Skills Workers 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Skills Workers 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Skills Workers in the sector have low bargaining power. 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Skills Workers to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Skills Workers 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 Devin Fidler, Marina Gorbis 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.
High brand equity
– Skills Workers has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Skills Workers to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Skills Workers is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Skills Workers is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Skills Workers is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Skills Workers 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 Skills Workers in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Skills Workers 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Skills Workers digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Skills Workers 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.
Weaknesses 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs are -
Need for greater diversity
– Skills Workers 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Skills Workers is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Skills Workers, firm in the HBR case study 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Skills Workers 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. Skills Workers 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs, 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Skills Workers 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Skills Workers 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Skills Workers 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 - 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs, in the dynamic environment Skills Workers has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Skills Workers has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs HBR case study mentions - Skills Workers 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Skills Workers 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.
Opportunities 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs | 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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. Skills Workers 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
– Skills Workers 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 Skills Workers to increase its market reach. Skills Workers 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Skills Workers has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Skills Workers to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs case study. Skills Workers can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Skills Workers 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 Skills Workers 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 Skills Workers to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Skills Workers 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Skills Workers to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Skills Workers 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. Skills Workers 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Skills Workers can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Skills Workers 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, Skills Workers 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Skills Workers 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.
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 Skills Workers in the consumer business. Now Skills Workers can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs are -
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. Skills Workers 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Skills Workers 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Skills Workers 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.
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. Skills Workers 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
– Skills Workers 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.
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 Skills Workers.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Skills Workers 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs .
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 Skills Workers business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Skills Workers
– 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 Skills Workers.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Skills Workers has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Skills Workers 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Skills Workers 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs, Skills Workers 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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 10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs 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 Skills Workers needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
