To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.In the fall of 2010, Sarah Endline, CEO and Founder of sweetriot, an organic chocolate company, was deciding the best way to grow her organic chocolate company, while keeping her chocolate physically and conceptually on the shelf. She wanted to grow the offerings and profits of her company, while maintaining its social mission and unique flair. The case tracks the origins of sweetriot from Sarah's formative early career experiences, to the company's launch and beyond as Sarah prepares future products, establishes production channels, and seeks future funding. Sarah was not content to just be a small New York City candy company. Her goal was for sweetriot to be the number one natural chocolate company in the world and to thus be a vehicle to drive change globally. How can she meet that objective while also keeping the company true to its social roots?
Authors :: Christopher Marquis, Donna Khalife, Bobbi Thomason
Topics :: Organizational Development
Tags :: Growth strategy, Organizational culture, Social enterprise, Social responsibility, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "sweetriot 2.0" written by Christopher Marquis, Donna Khalife, Bobbi Thomason includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sweetriot Chocolate facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in sweetriot 2.0 case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, Organizational culture, Social enterprise, Social responsibility and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the sweetriot 2.0 casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in sweetriot 2.0 case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sweetriot Chocolate, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sweetriot Chocolate 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 sweetriot 2.0 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in sweetriot 2.0 case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sweetriot Chocolate
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 Sweetriot Chocolate
Strengths sweetriot 2.0 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sweetriot Chocolate in sweetriot 2.0 Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sweetriot Chocolate in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sweetriot Chocolate is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the sweetriot 2.0 are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sweetriot Chocolate 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 sweetriot 2.0 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 sweetriot 2.0 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
– Sweetriot Chocolate is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sweetriot Chocolate in the sector have low bargaining power. sweetriot 2.0 has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sweetriot Chocolate to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sweetriot Chocolate has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sweetriot Chocolate has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sweetriot Chocolate is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in sweetriot 2.0 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 Sweetriot Chocolate 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 lead change in Organizational Development field
– Sweetriot Chocolate 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 Sweetriot Chocolate in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Sweetriot Chocolate
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sweetriot Chocolate does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses sweetriot 2.0 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of sweetriot 2.0 are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sweetriot Chocolate is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study sweetriot 2.0 can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sweetriot Chocolate 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 sweetriot 2.0 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 Sweetriot Chocolate 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sweetriot Chocolate has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study sweetriot 2.0 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 sweetriot 2.0 can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sweetriot Chocolate is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sweetriot Chocolate 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. Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sweetriot Chocolate, firm in the HBR case study sweetriot 2.0 needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Sweetriot Chocolate supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - sweetriot 2.0, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sweetriot Chocolate vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study sweetriot 2.0, it seems that the employees of Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sweetriot Chocolate products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sweetriot Chocolate needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities sweetriot 2.0 | 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 sweetriot 2.0 are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Sweetriot Chocolate can develop new processes and procedures in Organizational Development 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sweetriot Chocolate can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sweetriot Chocolate 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, sweetriot 2.0, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Sweetriot Chocolate 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. Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
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 Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sweetriot Chocolate 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 Sweetriot Chocolate to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sweetriot Chocolate is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. sweetriot 2.0 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sweetriot Chocolate can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sweetriot Chocolate operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Threats sweetriot 2.0 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study sweetriot 2.0 are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sweetriot Chocolate 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 Sweetriot Chocolate.
Environmental challenges
– Sweetriot Chocolate 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. Sweetriot Chocolate can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study sweetriot 2.0, Sweetriot Chocolate 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. Sweetriot Chocolate 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sweetriot Chocolate 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 sweetriot 2.0 .
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 wage structure of Sweetriot Chocolate
– 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 Sweetriot Chocolate.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sweetriot Chocolate 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 Sweetriot Chocolate with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sweetriot Chocolate 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 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. Sweetriot Chocolate needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sweetriot Chocolate is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of sweetriot 2.0 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 sweetriot 2.0 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 sweetriot 2.0 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 sweetriot 2.0 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 sweetriot 2.0 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 Sweetriot Chocolate needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.