Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Organizational Development
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change
Focuses on a contest for control of Fishery Products International Ltd., leading up to the company's annual general meeting on May 1, 2001. The owner of a Nova-Scotia-based competitor of Fishery Products International is the leading dissident shareholder. This proxy battle quickly becomes a matter of public and political debate because Fishery Products International is economically and socially important to its home province, Newfoundland and Labrador. As such, it is subject to company-specific provincial legislation, the FPI Act, which is one of the bases for legal maneuvering in the contest for control.
Authors :: John Melnyk, W. Glenn Rowe, Tami L. Hynes
Swot Analysis of "Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change" written by John Melnyk, W. Glenn Rowe, Tami L. Hynes includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Fishery Contest facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Regulation and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fishery Contest, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fishery Contest 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fishery Contest
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 Fishery Contest
Strengths Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fishery Contest in Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Fishery Contest
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Fishery Contest does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– Fishery Contest 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 Fishery Contest in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fishery Contest in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Fishery Contest has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Fishery Contest to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fishery Contest 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fishery Contest in the sector have low bargaining power. Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fishery Contest to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fishery Contest 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Fishery Contest is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Fishery Contest 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 Fishery Contest is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fishery Contest is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Fishery Contest has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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.
Weaknesses Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Fishery Contest 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change, is just above the industry average. Fishery Contest 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Fishery Contest 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Fishery Contest products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fishery Contest needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fishery Contest is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. Fishery Contest needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fishery Contest to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change, 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change, in the dynamic environment Fishery Contest has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fishery Contest has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Fishery Contest, firm in the HBR case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Fishery Contest is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fishery Contest 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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 Fishery Contest 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change | 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change are -
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 Fishery Contest in the consumer business. Now Fishery Contest can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Fishery Contest can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fishery Contest 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fishery Contest to increase its market reach. Fishery Contest 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Fishery Contest 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fishery Contest 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fishery Contest to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Organizational Development industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Fishery Contest can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fishery Contest 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fishery Contest can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fishery Contest operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fishery Contest 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 Fishery Contest can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Fishery Contest 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 Fishery Contest to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Fishery Contest has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Threats Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fishery Contest 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fishery Contest is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Fishery Contest 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. Fishery Contest can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Fishery Contest with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change, Fishery Contest 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 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fishery Contest 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fishery Contest 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.
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 Fishery Contest in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Fishery Contest 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.
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. Fishery Contest needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fishery Contest 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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 Vic Young and Fishery Products International (B): Winds of Change 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 Fishery Contest needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
