The director of La Liberte, a French not-for-profit weekly newspaper, needed to revitalize the newspaper as sales had been declining consistently for the past 15 years. The newspaper's mission was to serve the French community in Manitoba, Canada. Survival of a French newspaper was essential for the French culture in the community. To reverse the negative sales trend, the director conducted a survey. Based on the findings of the survey, the director had to balance his desire to serve the French community with the need to be financially viable.
Swot Analysis of "La Liberte Newspaper" written by Satyendra Singh, Martine Morin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that French Newspaper facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in La Liberte Newspaper case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial analysis, Marketing, Strategic planning and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the La Liberte Newspaper casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of La Liberte Newspaper
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in La Liberte Newspaper case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the French Newspaper, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which French Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in La Liberte Newspaper case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of French Newspaper
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 French Newspaper
Strengths La Liberte Newspaper | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of French Newspaper in La Liberte Newspaper Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that French Newspaper 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
– French Newspaper is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in La Liberte Newspaper Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– French Newspaper has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled French Newspaper to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– French Newspaper has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. French Newspaper 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– French Newspaper is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the La Liberte Newspaper are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the La Liberte Newspaper 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.
Organizational Resilience of French Newspaper
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that French Newspaper does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– French Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of French Newspaper in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Organizational Development field
– French Newspaper 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 French Newspaper in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– French Newspaper 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 Satyendra Singh, Martine Morin 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.
Strong track record of project management
– French Newspaper is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses La Liberte Newspaper | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of La Liberte Newspaper are -
Need for greater diversity
– French Newspaper 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, French Newspaper 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of French Newspaper is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Organizational Development segment. French Newspaper needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help French Newspaper to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, French Newspaper is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study La Liberte Newspaper can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the La Liberte Newspaper HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though French Newspaper has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at French Newspaper 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study La Liberte Newspaper, in the dynamic environment French Newspaper has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. French Newspaper has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study La Liberte Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as French Newspaper is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study La Liberte Newspaper, is just above the industry average. French Newspaper 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study La Liberte Newspaper 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 French Newspaper 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, French Newspaper 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.
Opportunities La Liberte Newspaper | 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 La Liberte Newspaper are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, French Newspaper 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 French Newspaper 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at French Newspaper 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.
Loyalty marketing
– French Newspaper 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– French Newspaper 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, French Newspaper can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that French Newspaper operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
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. French Newspaper can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of French Newspaper has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help French Newspaper to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the La Liberte Newspaper case study. French Newspaper can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects French Newspaper 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
– French Newspaper 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help French Newspaper to increase its market reach. French Newspaper 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.
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. French Newspaper 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. French Newspaper 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.
Buying journey improvements
– French Newspaper can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. La Liberte Newspaper 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.
Threats La Liberte Newspaper External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study La Liberte Newspaper are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– French Newspaper 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.
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 French Newspaper.
Environmental challenges
– French Newspaper 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. French Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper, French Newspaper 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for French Newspaper 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.
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. French Newspaper can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– French Newspaper has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, French Newspaper needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Organizational Development sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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 French Newspaper in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– French Newspaper 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 Organizational Development industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents French Newspaper with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on French Newspaper 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of La Liberte Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper 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 La Liberte Newspaper 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 French Newspaper needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.