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 - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, 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 -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Risks Engaging 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
– 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.
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Risks Engaging 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.
Analytics focus
– Risks Engaging 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 Witold J. Henisz 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Risks Engaging 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 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
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.
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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Risks Engaging is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders 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
– 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Risks Engaging is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
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.
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 -
Need for greater diversity
– Risks Engaging 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.
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.
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.
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 Risks Engaging supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Risks Engaging vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
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.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders, is just above the industry average. Risks Engaging 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Risks Engaging 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Risks Engaging is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Risks Engaging 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. Risks Engaging 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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Risks Engaging 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Risks Engaging 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.
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.
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 Risks Engaging in the consumer business. Now Risks Engaging can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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.
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.
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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Risks Engaging to increase its market reach. Risks Engaging 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.
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.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Risks Engaging 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 Risks Engaging to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 -
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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Risks Engaging 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.
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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Risks Engaging
– 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 Risks Engaging.
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.
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.
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. Risks Engaging needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study 12 Pitfalls to Avoid on the Path to Managing Reputational Risks: Engaging Your Stakeholders, Risks Engaging 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 .
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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