Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients
Retiring after 16 years at Evergreen Executive Education, LLC, Martha Hires is reminiscing with a colleague about some of the great and not-so-great client experiences they had shared over the years. Her colleague suggests she make a list of the best and worst client practices to help the firm identify early client-based signals portending a good or bad client engagement to increase the odds for a positive client engagement while also decreasing the odds of a bad one.
Swot Analysis of "Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients" written by Mark E. Haskins includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Client Bad facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients casestudy better are - – technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Client Bad, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Client Bad 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Client Bad
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 Client Bad
Strengths Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Client Bad in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Client Bad has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Client Bad 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.
Learning organization
- Client Bad 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 Client Bad is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Client Bad 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
– Client Bad is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Client Bad in the sector have low bargaining power. Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Client Bad to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Client Bad
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Client Bad does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Client Bad has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Client Bad is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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.
High brand equity
– Client Bad has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Client Bad to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Client Bad in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Client Bad 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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.
Weaknesses Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Client Bad is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Client Bad needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Client Bad to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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 Client Bad 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Client Bad 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients, is just above the industry average. Client Bad 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients, in the dynamic environment Client Bad has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Client Bad has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients HBR case study mentions - Client Bad 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients, it seems that the employees of Client Bad 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Mark E. Haskins suggests that, Client Bad 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Client Bad 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 - Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Client Bad 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Client Bad has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Opportunities Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients | 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients are -
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. Client Bad 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. Client Bad 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Client Bad 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Client Bad can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Client Bad operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Client Bad 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.
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 Client Bad in the consumer business. Now Client Bad can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Client Bad 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Client Bad is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Client Bad 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Client Bad to increase its market reach. Client Bad 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.
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 Client Bad 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Client Bad 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Client Bad can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Client Bad 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, Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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. Client Bad will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients, Client Bad 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Client Bad 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.
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. Client Bad can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Client Bad 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.
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 Client Bad in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Client Bad
– 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 Client Bad.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Client Bad 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Client Bad 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Client Bad has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Client Bad 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Client Bad is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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 Martha Hires-The Good and The Bad of Working with Clients 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 Client Bad needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
