CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses
As a second generation business leader, Chairman Dhanin Chearavanont took over the family agribusiness company and built it to become a major diversified conglomerate in Thailand and expanded the business in SE Asia and China. While growing the business, he and his brothers created a holding company to both maintain and separate the interests of the family with the growing business units. As a third and possibly fourth generation of Chearavanonts enter the company, how has Chairman Dhanin created a business culture that maintains the closeness of a family business with the strategic vision, innovations, and transparency of a professionally run company -- especially given the fact that many business units are public companies? This case seeks to outline the balance of a family business with the needs of a growing and competitive international conglomerate.
Swot Analysis of "CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses" written by William C. Kirby, Tracy Yuen Manty includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Family Dhanin facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Family Dhanin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Family Dhanin 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Family Dhanin
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 Family Dhanin
Strengths CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Family Dhanin in CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Family Dhanin is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Family Dhanin 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses - 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
– Family Dhanin is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Family Dhanin 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Family Dhanin is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Family Dhanin 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 Family Dhanin in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Family Dhanin 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Family Dhanin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Family Dhanin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Family Dhanin is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Family Dhanin 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 William C. Kirby, Tracy Yuen Manty 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Family Dhanin in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Family Dhanin in the sector have low bargaining power. CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Family Dhanin to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Family Dhanin 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Family Dhanin 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses HBR case study mentions - Family Dhanin takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, William C. Kirby, Tracy Yuen Manty suggests that, Family Dhanin 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Family Dhanin has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Family Dhanin 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Family Dhanin products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Family Dhanin 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 Family Dhanin 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Family Dhanin is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Family Dhanin 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Family Dhanin, firm in the HBR case study CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses | 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Family Dhanin 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Family Dhanin to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Family Dhanin 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, CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Family Dhanin 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Family Dhanin can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Family Dhanin 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 Family Dhanin 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Family Dhanin has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Family Dhanin to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses case study. Family Dhanin can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Family Dhanin 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.
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 Family Dhanin 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Family Dhanin to increase its market reach. Family Dhanin 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Family Dhanin 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, Family Dhanin can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Family Dhanin operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Family Dhanin 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 Family Dhanin to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Family Dhanin 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.
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 Family Dhanin in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Family Dhanin is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Family Dhanin
– 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 Family Dhanin.
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. Family Dhanin can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Family Dhanin 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Family Dhanin 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Family Dhanin 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.
Environmental challenges
– Family Dhanin 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. Family Dhanin can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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 Family Dhanin.
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. Family Dhanin needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses 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 CP Group: Balancing the Needs of a Family Business with the Needs of a Family of Businesses 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 Family Dhanin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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