Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector
By the late 2000s, the law firm Duane Morris had transformed itself from a growing U.S. law firm to a significant global player. The firm's uniquely collaborative organizational culture, which featured a transparent, data-driven compensation system, practice-group integration across multiple offices, and rewards for attorneys who shared responsibility, had contributed to the firm's success as it had expanded into new U.S. and international offices. Yet, amid a shaky world economy and an increasingly cutthroat legal profession, Duane Morris attorneys began to wonder-could collaboration survive as a firm value? Would the firm's culture help it continue to grow in the years ahead and bring in more sophisticated legal work, or would its lawyers inevitably start to keep work to themselves as the firm navigated an ever-more competitive environment?
Swot Analysis of "Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector" written by Heidi K. Gardner, Annelena Lobb includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Duane Morris facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Collaboration, Competition, Executive compensation, Growth strategy, Joint ventures, Leading teams, Managing uncertainty, Marketing, Organizational culture, Organizational structure, Personnel policies, Risk management, Social responsibility, Strategy execution and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Duane Morris, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Duane Morris 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Duane Morris
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 Duane Morris
Strengths Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Duane Morris in Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Duane Morris in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Duane Morris 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Duane Morris is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Duane Morris 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.
Training and development
– Duane Morris has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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.
Organizational Resilience of Duane Morris
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Duane Morris does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Duane Morris is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Duane Morris digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Duane Morris has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Duane Morris has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Duane Morris 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Duane Morris 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
– Duane Morris 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 Heidi K. Gardner, Annelena Lobb 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.
Weaknesses Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Heidi K. Gardner, Annelena Lobb suggests that, Duane Morris is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Duane Morris is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Duane Morris needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Duane Morris 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, Duane Morris is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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, Duane Morris 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. Duane Morris 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Duane Morris 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector HBR case study mentions - Duane Morris takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Duane Morris products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Duane Morris needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Duane Morris 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Duane Morris has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Duane Morris 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.
Opportunities Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector | 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Duane Morris 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.
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 Duane Morris in the consumer business. Now Duane Morris can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Duane Morris can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Duane Morris operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Duane Morris 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Duane Morris 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.
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. Duane Morris can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Duane Morris 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.
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. Duane Morris 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. Duane Morris 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Duane Morris 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Duane Morris to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Duane Morris is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Duane Morris can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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.
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 Duane Morris 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
– Duane Morris 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.
Threats Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Duane Morris 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector, Duane Morris 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 .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Duane Morris 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector .
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. Duane Morris needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Duane Morris.
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. Duane Morris can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Duane Morris is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Duane Morris has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Duane Morris 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Duane Morris 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 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.
Environmental challenges
– Duane Morris 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. Duane Morris can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Duane Morris 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.
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 Duane Morris business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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 Collaborating for Growth: Duane Morris in a Turbulent Legal Sector 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 Duane Morris needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.