Swot Analysis of "Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility" written by Lynn Sharp Paine includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Conceptions Purpose facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy, Ethics, Social responsibility and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Conceptions Purpose, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Conceptions Purpose 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Conceptions Purpose
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 Conceptions Purpose
Strengths Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Conceptions Purpose in Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Conceptions Purpose 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 Lynn Sharp Paine 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Conceptions Purpose has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Conceptions Purpose 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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
– Conceptions Purpose is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Conceptions Purpose 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
– Conceptions Purpose 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Conceptions Purpose 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 Conceptions Purpose in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Conceptions Purpose is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Conceptions Purpose 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Conceptions Purpose
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Conceptions Purpose does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Conceptions Purpose to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Conceptions Purpose to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Conceptions Purpose has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Conceptions Purpose to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility, is just above the industry average. Conceptions Purpose 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Conceptions Purpose 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Conceptions Purpose 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. Conceptions Purpose 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Conceptions Purpose 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Conceptions Purpose is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Conceptions Purpose needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Conceptions Purpose to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility HBR case study mentions - Conceptions Purpose 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.
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 Conceptions Purpose supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Conceptions Purpose vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility, it seems that the employees of Conceptions Purpose 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Conceptions Purpose 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Conceptions Purpose, firm in the HBR case study Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Conceptions Purpose 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.
Opportunities Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility | 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility are -
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 Conceptions Purpose in the consumer business. Now Conceptions Purpose can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Conceptions Purpose can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Conceptions Purpose has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Conceptions Purpose to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility case study. Conceptions Purpose 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 Conceptions Purpose 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Conceptions Purpose 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Conceptions Purpose 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 Conceptions Purpose to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Conceptions Purpose 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Conceptions Purpose 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Conceptions Purpose can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Conceptions Purpose operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Conceptions Purpose 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.
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. Conceptions Purpose 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. Conceptions Purpose 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Conceptions Purpose 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, Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Conceptions Purpose 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.
Threats Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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. Conceptions Purpose 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Conceptions Purpose 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Conceptions Purpose has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Conceptions Purpose 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.
Environmental challenges
– Conceptions Purpose 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. Conceptions Purpose can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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. Conceptions Purpose can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Conceptions Purpose business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Conceptions Purpose in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Conceptions Purpose in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Increasing wage structure of Conceptions Purpose
– 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 Conceptions Purpose.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Conceptions Purpose 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Conceptions Purpose 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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 Leading for Integrity: Corporate Purpose and Responsibility 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 Conceptions Purpose needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
