Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters
Deals with the actual implementation of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Explains in detail the certification process for fisheries. This process is a best-practice example for cooperation between environmental groups and corporations. The case raises the role of nongovernmental organizations when cooperating with industry.
Swot Analysis of "Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters" written by Ulrich Steger, George Radler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Stewardship Marine facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Joint ventures, Operations management, Organizational culture, Sustainability and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Stewardship Marine, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Stewardship Marine 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Stewardship Marine
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 Stewardship Marine
Strengths Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Stewardship Marine in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Stewardship Marine
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Stewardship Marine does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Stewardship Marine digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Stewardship Marine 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Stewardship Marine 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Stewardship Marine is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Stewardship Marine has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Stewardship Marine is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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.
Learning organization
- Stewardship Marine 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 Stewardship Marine is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Stewardship Marine 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Stewardship Marine 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Stewardship Marine is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Stewardship Marine 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.
Weaknesses Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters, in the dynamic environment Stewardship Marine has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Stewardship Marine has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Stewardship Marine is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Stewardship Marine 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 - Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Stewardship Marine is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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 Stewardship Marine 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters, 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Stewardship Marine 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Stewardship Marine 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. Stewardship Marine 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters, is just above the industry average. Stewardship Marine 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, Stewardship Marine 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Stewardship Marine 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.
Opportunities Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters | 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Stewardship Marine 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.
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. Stewardship Marine 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. Stewardship Marine 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Stewardship Marine can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Stewardship Marine 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Stewardship Marine 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Stewardship Marine 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, Stewardship Marine 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, Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Stewardship Marine 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Stewardship Marine 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 Stewardship Marine in the consumer business. Now Stewardship Marine can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Stewardship Marine 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Stewardship Marine 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 Stewardship Marine to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Stewardship Marine 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Stewardship Marine can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Stewardship Marine with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Stewardship Marine 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters, Stewardship Marine 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 wage structure of Stewardship Marine
– 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 Stewardship Marine.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Stewardship Marine 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters .
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 Stewardship Marine business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Stewardship Marine demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Stewardship Marine.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Stewardship Marine is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Stewardship Marine can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Stewardship Marine 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Stewardship Marine 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.
Environmental challenges
– Stewardship Marine 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. Stewardship Marine can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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 Marine Stewardship Council (B): Departing in Uncharted Waters 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 Stewardship Marine needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.