12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders
Engaging with your external stakeholders is an essential means by which companies not only reduce risk and preempt future crises, but also generate value for shareholders and society alike. So why do executives appear to ignore "corporate diplomacy," which in many ways is one of the best resources in the executive toolkit to help manage risk effectively? Drawing on his DIPLOMat framework, the author answers this question by showing the myriad ways that executives are frequently stymied in their efforts to maximize their stakeholder potential. He sketches out the 12 biggest risks to avoid. By identifying the main risks in the stakeholder environment, executives can mitigate their adverse impacts and seize their upside opportunity.
Swot Analysis of "12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders" written by Witold J. Henisz includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Risks Engaging facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Knowledge management, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Risks Engaging, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Risks Engaging 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Risks Engaging
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 Risks Engaging
Strengths 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Risks Engaging in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Risks Engaging to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Risks Engaging to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Risks Engaging 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 Risks Engaging in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Risks Engaging is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Risks Engaging
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Risks Engaging does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Risks Engaging 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Risks Engaging has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Risks Engaging 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Risks Engaging is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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.
Learning organization
- Risks Engaging 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 Risks Engaging is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Risks Engaging in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Risks Engaging has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Risks Engaging in the sector have low bargaining power. 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Risks Engaging to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders HBR case study mentions - Risks Engaging 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Risks Engaging products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Risks Engaging needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders, it seems that the employees of Risks Engaging 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Risks Engaging 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 - 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders, in the dynamic environment Risks Engaging has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Risks Engaging has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Risks Engaging 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Risks Engaging is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Risks Engaging has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 Risks Engaging has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Risks Engaging 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Risks Engaging 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.
Opportunities 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders | 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Risks Engaging has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Risks Engaging to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders case study. Risks Engaging 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 Risks Engaging 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Risks Engaging can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Risks Engaging 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Risks Engaging to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Risks Engaging can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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.
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. Risks Engaging 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. Risks Engaging 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.
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. Risks Engaging can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Risks Engaging is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Risks Engaging can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Risks Engaging operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Risks Engaging 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.
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 Risks Engaging 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Risks Engaging 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.
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. Risks Engaging can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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. Risks Engaging 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.
Environmental challenges
– Risks Engaging 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. Risks Engaging can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
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 Risks Engaging business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Risks Engaging 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.
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 Risks Engaging.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Risks Engaging has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Risks Engaging 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.
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. Risks Engaging 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
– Risks Engaging needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Risks Engaging is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Risks Engaging 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Risks Engaging 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
– Risks Engaging 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.
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 Risks Engaging in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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 Risks Engaging needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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