Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive
Ben & Jerry's is an anti-establishment, values-driven company that has become a successful venture. The dominant founder, Ben Cohen, is not an effective manager, but he brings creative marketing and product skills that have been important to the company's success. He also is controlling shareholder and the force behind the company's socially-minded culture. One of the many policies that have reflected Ben's values but which has created difficulty in managing the organization is the 5 to 1 compensation differential between the top and the bottom of the organization. Up to mid 1990, the company was operating in an explosive growth business with relatively weak competitors; this has changed by the time of the case in September 1990. The case opens as Chuck Lacy is taking over as president. He needs to decide what to do about the 5 to 1 rule and the related issues of Ben's role, and the value of the company's counterculture style. Students must consider the difficulty and importance of the general manager's responsibility in reconciling company values with commercial imperatives and to consider the effect of compensation policy on morale and organizational effectiveness.
Swot Analysis of "Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive" written by John Theroux includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ben Ben's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurial management, Motivating people, Organizational culture, Organizational structure, Social responsibility and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ben Ben's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ben Ben's 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ben Ben's
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Organizational Development field.
4. Making a Organizational Development topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ben Ben's
Strengths Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ben Ben's in Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Ben Ben's 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 Ben Ben's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Ben Ben's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ben Ben's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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
– Ben Ben's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ben Ben's 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ben Ben's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ben Ben's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ben Ben's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ben Ben's 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ben Ben's in the sector have low bargaining power. Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ben Ben's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ben Ben's 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.
Analytics focus
– Ben Ben's 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 John Theroux 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ben Ben's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Ben Ben's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive, is just above the industry average. Ben Ben's 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ben Ben's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive, in the dynamic environment Ben Ben's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ben Ben's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John Theroux suggests that, Ben Ben's 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Ben Ben's, firm in the HBR case study Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Organizational Development 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ben Ben's has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ben Ben's 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ben Ben's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Ben Ben's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ben Ben's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Ben Ben's 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ben Ben's 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive | 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Organizational Development industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ben Ben's 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. Ben Ben's 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ben Ben's 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 Ben Ben's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ben Ben's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ben Ben's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ben Ben's 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.
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 Ben Ben's in the consumer business. Now Ben Ben's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ben Ben's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ben Ben's 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ben Ben's 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ben Ben's 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 Organizational Development segment.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ben Ben's 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, Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ben Ben's to increase its market reach. Ben Ben's 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ben Ben's in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Organizational Development segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ben Ben's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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.
Threats Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive are -
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 Ben Ben's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ben Ben's is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive, Ben Ben's may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Organizational Development .
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. Ben Ben's 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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Organizational Development field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ben Ben's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ben Ben's 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ben Ben's 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ben Ben's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ben Ben's 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive .
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ben Ben's in the Organizational Development industry. The Organizational Development 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.
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 Ben Ben's.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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 Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, Inc.: Keeping the Mission(s) Alive 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 Ben Ben's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
