The Craddock Cup SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Communication
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Craddock Cup
This case has three main purposes: 1. To illustrate the importance of understanding cost behaviors in calculating the contribution of the Corvallis Cup youth soccer tournament to decide whether to continue, drop, or expand the tournament. 2. To provide a vehicle for discussing sunk costs, overhead allocation methods, and the impact of misallocation on the income/loss shown for a segment of an organization. 3. To allow students to perform simple breakeven analysis using relevant costs.
Authors :: Kristy Lilly, Liz Smith, Mark E. Haskins
Swot Analysis of "The Craddock Cup" written by Kristy Lilly, Liz Smith, Mark E. Haskins includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tournament Cup facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Craddock Cup case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial analysis and Communication.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Craddock Cup casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Craddock Cup case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tournament Cup, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tournament Cup 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 The Craddock Cup can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Craddock Cup case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tournament Cup
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Communication field.
4. Making a Communication topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tournament Cup
Strengths The Craddock Cup | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tournament Cup in The Craddock Cup Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tournament Cup 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 The Craddock Cup HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Craddock Cup 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
– Tournament Cup is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Craddock Cup 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Tournament Cup is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Craddock Cup Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Tournament Cup has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Craddock Cup 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tournament Cup is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Craddock Cup are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Tournament Cup 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 Tournament Cup is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Craddock Cup Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Tournament Cup 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 brand equity
– Tournament Cup has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tournament Cup to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Communication field
– Tournament Cup 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 Tournament Cup 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 Tournament Cup in the sector have low bargaining power. The Craddock Cup has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tournament Cup to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communication industry
– The Craddock Cup firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tournament Cup to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communication industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tournament Cup to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses The Craddock Cup | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Craddock Cup are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tournament Cup 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. Tournament Cup 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tournament Cup 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Kristy Lilly, Liz Smith, Mark E. Haskins suggests that, Tournament Cup 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tournament Cup 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Craddock Cup 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 Tournament Cup 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tournament Cup 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Craddock Cup 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 The Craddock Cup can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tournament Cup is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tournament Cup is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The Craddock Cup can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Craddock Cup, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Communication 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Tournament Cup 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tournament Cup products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tournament Cup needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities The Craddock Cup | 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 The Craddock Cup are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tournament Cup 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, The Craddock Cup, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Tournament Cup can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communication industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Tournament Cup can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tournament Cup 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 The Craddock Cup - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tournament Cup to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tournament Cup 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 Tournament Cup to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Tournament Cup 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tournament Cup 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 Communication industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tournament Cup 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. Tournament Cup 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tournament Cup 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.
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 Tournament Cup 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Tournament Cup 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 Communication segment.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tournament Cup has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Tournament Cup to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Craddock Cup case study. Tournament Cup can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Tournament Cup in the consumer business. Now Tournament Cup can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats The Craddock Cup External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Craddock Cup are -
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 Tournament Cup.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tournament Cup 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 Tournament Cup in the Communication sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tournament Cup is facing in Communication sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Tournament Cup 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 Communication industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communication field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tournament Cup can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tournament Cup 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 The Craddock Cup .
Environmental challenges
– Tournament Cup 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. Tournament Cup can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communication industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tournament Cup 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tournament Cup in the Communication industry. The Communication 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.
Increasing wage structure of Tournament Cup
– 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 Tournament Cup.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Craddock Cup, Tournament Cup may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communication .
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 Tournament Cup business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Craddock Cup 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 The Craddock Cup 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 The Craddock Cup 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 The Craddock Cup 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 The Craddock Cup 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 Tournament Cup needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.