Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship
This is part of the subset of Ivey cases and technical notes written for Introductory-Level courses.The students will learn the role of emotion in decision making and understand the specific implications of emotion in entrepreneurship.
Swot Analysis of "Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship" written by Colleen Sharen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Emotion Entrepreneurship facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Organizational culture and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing,
geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Emotion Entrepreneurship, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Emotion Entrepreneurship
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 Emotion Entrepreneurship
Strengths Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Emotion Entrepreneurship in Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Emotion Entrepreneurship has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Emotion Entrepreneurship to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Emotion Entrepreneurship has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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 Emotion Entrepreneurship in the sector have low bargaining power. Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Emotion Entrepreneurship to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Emotion Entrepreneurship is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Colleen Sharen 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.
Learning organization
- Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Emotion Entrepreneurship is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Emotion Entrepreneurship in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Emotion Entrepreneurship to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Emotion Entrepreneurship to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship - 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 recruit top talent
– Emotion Entrepreneurship is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Emotion Entrepreneurship is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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.
Weaknesses Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Emotion Entrepreneurship, firm in the HBR case study Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Emotion Entrepreneurship is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship, is just above the industry average. Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Emotion Entrepreneurship products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship, in the dynamic environment Emotion Entrepreneurship has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Emotion Entrepreneurship 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, Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
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 Emotion Entrepreneurship supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Emotion Entrepreneurship vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship HBR case study mentions - Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Opportunities Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship | 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Emotion Entrepreneurship to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Emotion Entrepreneurship in the consumer business. Now Emotion Entrepreneurship can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Emotion Entrepreneurship can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
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 Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
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. Emotion Entrepreneurship can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Emotion Entrepreneurship to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Emotion Entrepreneurship can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Emotion Entrepreneurship can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Emotion Entrepreneurship is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship, Emotion Entrepreneurship 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 .
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 Emotion Entrepreneurship in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Emotion Entrepreneurship business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Emotion Entrepreneurship can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Emotion Entrepreneurship
– 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 Emotion Entrepreneurship.
Regulatory challenges
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
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. Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Emotion Entrepreneurship 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
– Emotion Entrepreneurship 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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 Note on Decision Making, Emotions and Entrepreneurship 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 Emotion Entrepreneurship needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
