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Woolf Farming and Processing SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Woolf Farming and Processing


Woolf Farming Company, a privately owned family farming business in California's Central Valley, found its business threatened by a lack of water, brought on by a combination of drought, poor quality well water and unavailability of surface water due to federally imposed pumping restrictions. Woolf had been farming crops for more than 30 years, but this was the first time they suffered a water shortage so severe that crops had to be abandoned in the field. Even if there was short-term relief in the form of an increased allocation of water from the government, Woolf was concerned about water reliability and the need for additional infrastructure to provide long term water security to the region. If convinced that the water problem would be resolved, then Woolf should move quickly to purchase more land which was currently available at distressed prices. Yet some board members questioned the logic of additional investment in the region whose resources were so uncertain and wondered whether it was more prudent to pursue growth elsewhere. At the same time, some of Woolf's owners began to believe that more of the company's resources should be prioritized for dividends and other distributions as opposed to purely growth. What, if anything, could Woolf and other farmers do to influence the outcome?

Authors :: David E. Bell, Laura Winig, Mary Shelman

Topics :: Leadership & Managing People

Tags :: Sustainability, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Woolf Farming and Processing" written by David E. Bell, Laura Winig, Mary Shelman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Woolf Water facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Woolf Farming and Processing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sustainability and Leadership & Managing People.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Woolf Farming and Processing casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Woolf Farming and Processing


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Woolf Farming and Processing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Woolf Water, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Woolf Water 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 Woolf Farming and Processing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Woolf Farming and Processing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Woolf Water
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 Woolf Water




Strengths Woolf Farming and Processing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Woolf Water in Woolf Farming and Processing Harvard Business Review case study are -

Highly skilled collaborators

– Woolf Water 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 Woolf Farming and Processing HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Training and development

– Woolf Water has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Woolf Farming and Processing 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

– Woolf Water 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 David E. Bell, Laura Winig, Mary Shelman 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 Woolf Water in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Innovation driven organization

– Woolf Water is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Woolf Farming and Processing Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

Organizational Resilience of Woolf Water

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Woolf Water does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field

– Woolf Water 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 Woolf Water in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Woolf Water in the sector have low bargaining power. Woolf Farming and Processing has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Woolf Water to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

High brand equity

– Woolf Water has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Woolf Water to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy in the Woolf Farming and Processing 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.

Strong track record of project management

– Woolf Water is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Woolf Water 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.






Weaknesses Woolf Farming and Processing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Woolf Farming and Processing are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Woolf Water is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Woolf Water needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Woolf Water to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Woolf Water 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Woolf Water, firm in the HBR case study Woolf Farming and Processing needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Woolf Farming and Processing, it seems that the employees of Woolf Water 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 dependence on star products

– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Woolf Farming and Processing 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 Woolf Water has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Woolf Farming and Processing, is just above the industry average. Woolf Water 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Woolf Water 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.

Skills based hiring

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Woolf Water 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Woolf Water 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. Woolf Water 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.

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 Woolf Water supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Woolf Farming and Processing, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Woolf Water vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Lack of clear differentiation of Woolf Water products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Woolf Water needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.




Opportunities Woolf Farming and Processing | 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 Woolf Farming and Processing are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Woolf Water 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Woolf Water can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Woolf Water 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 Woolf Water to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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. Woolf Water 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. Woolf Water 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Woolf Water can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Woolf Farming and Processing 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Woolf Water 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Woolf Water 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, Woolf Farming and Processing, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Woolf Water can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Woolf Water operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.

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 Woolf Water to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.

Developing new processes and practices

– Woolf Water 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Woolf Water 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Woolf Water is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Woolf Farming and Processing 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Woolf Water 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 Woolf Farming and Processing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Woolf Farming and Processing 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. Woolf Water 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.

Environmental challenges

– Woolf Water 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. Woolf Water can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.

Regulatory challenges

– Woolf Water 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Woolf Water 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.

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 Woolf Water business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Woolf Water with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.

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 Woolf Water in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Woolf Water 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.

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. Woolf Water needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Woolf Water is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Woolf Water

– 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 Woolf Water.

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 international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Woolf Water 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 Woolf Farming and Processing .




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Woolf Farming and Processing 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 Woolf Farming and Processing 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 Woolf Farming and Processing 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 Woolf Farming and Processing 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 Woolf Farming and Processing 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 Woolf Water needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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