Swot Analysis of "Six Principles of Successful Persuasion" written by Nitin Nohria, Brooke Harrington includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Principles Persuasion facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Six Principles of Successful Persuasion case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication, Leadership and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Six Principles of Successful Persuasion casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Six Principles of Successful Persuasion
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Six Principles of Successful Persuasion case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Principles Persuasion, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Principles Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Six Principles of Successful Persuasion case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Principles Persuasion
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 Principles Persuasion
Strengths Six Principles of Successful Persuasion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Principles Persuasion in Six Principles of Successful Persuasion Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Principles Persuasion has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Principles Persuasion 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
– Principles Persuasion is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Principles Persuasion has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Principles Persuasion to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Principles Persuasion digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Principles Persuasion 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Six Principles of Successful Persuasion firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Principles Persuasion to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Principles Persuasion to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Principles Persuasion 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 Principles Persuasion is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Six Principles of Successful Persuasion Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Principles Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Principles Persuasion 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 Principles Persuasion 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 Principles Persuasion 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Principles Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Principles Persuasion is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Six Principles of Successful Persuasion are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Principles Persuasion has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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.
Weaknesses Six Principles of Successful Persuasion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Six Principles of Successful Persuasion are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Principles Persuasion products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Principles Persuasion needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Principles Persuasion 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Principles Persuasion 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Six Principles of Successful Persuasion, it seems that the employees of Principles Persuasion 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Principles Persuasion 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. Principles Persuasion 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Principles Persuasion is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Principles Persuasion, firm in the HBR case study Six Principles of Successful Persuasion needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Principles Persuasion supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Six Principles of Successful Persuasion, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Principles Persuasion vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Nitin Nohria, Brooke Harrington suggests that, Principles Persuasion is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Principles Persuasion 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 - Six Principles of Successful Persuasion should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Six Principles of Successful Persuasion, is just above the industry average. Principles Persuasion 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.
Opportunities Six Principles of Successful Persuasion | 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Principles Persuasion can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Principles Persuasion to increase its market reach. Principles Persuasion 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Principles Persuasion 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Principles Persuasion can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Principles Persuasion 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. Principles Persuasion 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Principles Persuasion can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Principles Persuasion operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Principles Persuasion 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, Six Principles of Successful Persuasion, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Principles Persuasion can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Principles Persuasion in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Principles Persuasion is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Principles Persuasion 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Principles Persuasion 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.
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 Principles Persuasion 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.
Threats Six Principles of Successful Persuasion External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Six Principles of Successful Persuasion are -
Environmental challenges
– Principles Persuasion 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. Principles Persuasion can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Principles Persuasion with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Principles Persuasion 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.
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.
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. Principles Persuasion can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Principles Persuasion 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Principles Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Six Principles of Successful Persuasion, Principles Persuasion 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Principles Persuasion has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Principles Persuasion 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Principles Persuasion 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 Principles Persuasion 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Principles Persuasion is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Principles Persuasion needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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 Six Principles of Successful Persuasion 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 Principles Persuasion needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
