Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen
Sophie Chen, an Asian-American MBA student at Harvard Business School, describes a professional situation in which she was unable to mentor a junior person effectively because she disapproved of the way her Asian-American mentee conformed to an ethnic stereotype. Feeling the need to distance herself from the stereotype, Chen concluded that there was little she could do to help her mentee. By the end of her narrative, Chen questions whether she could have been a more effective mentor. She reflects on her image concerns, questioning whether they have undermined her ability to exercise leadership effectively.
Swot Analysis of "Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen" written by Robin J. Ely, Ingrid Vargas includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Chen Mentee facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Collaboration, Customers, Diversity, Leadership, Race and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chen Mentee, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chen Mentee 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chen Mentee
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 Chen Mentee
Strengths Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chen Mentee in Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Chen Mentee 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Chen Mentee is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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 Chen Mentee 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Chen Mentee 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 Chen Mentee in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Chen Mentee to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Chen Mentee to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Chen Mentee has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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.
Analytics focus
– Chen Mentee 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 Robin J. Ely, Ingrid Vargas 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
– Chen Mentee has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Chen Mentee 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
– Chen Mentee is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Chen Mentee in the sector have low bargaining power. Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chen Mentee to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Chen Mentee is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Chen Mentee 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen are -
Need for greater diversity
– Chen Mentee 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Chen Mentee 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Chen Mentee products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Chen Mentee needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Chen Mentee supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Chen Mentee vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Chen Mentee 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Chen Mentee 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen, is just above the industry average. Chen Mentee 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Chen Mentee 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Chen Mentee 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. Chen Mentee 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Chen Mentee is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Chen Mentee needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Chen Mentee to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Chen Mentee is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen | 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen are -
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. Chen Mentee can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Chen Mentee 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.
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. Chen Mentee can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Chen Mentee 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Chen Mentee 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, Chen Mentee 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 Chen Mentee 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Chen Mentee can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Chen Mentee 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. Chen Mentee 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.
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 Chen Mentee in the consumer business. Now Chen Mentee can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Chen Mentee 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, Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Chen Mentee 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 Chen Mentee to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Chen Mentee to increase its market reach. Chen Mentee 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.
Threats Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen are -
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.
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 Chen Mentee in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Chen Mentee 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Chen Mentee 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Chen Mentee 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.
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. Chen Mentee can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Chen Mentee 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Chen Mentee 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 Chen Mentee.
Increasing wage structure of Chen Mentee
– 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 Chen Mentee.
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. Chen Mentee needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Chen Mentee 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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 Managing a Public Image: Sophie Chen 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 Chen Mentee needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
