Swot Analysis of "Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002" written by Brian Golden, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Leaf Maple facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Managing people, Organizational structure and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Leaf Maple, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Leaf Maple 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Leaf Maple
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 Leaf Maple
Strengths Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Leaf Maple in Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Leaf Maple
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Leaf Maple does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Leaf Maple has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Leaf Maple 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Leaf Maple 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 Leaf Maple is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Leaf Maple is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Leaf Maple is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Leaf Maple 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.
Training and development
– Leaf Maple has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Leaf Maple 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Leaf Maple in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Leaf Maple 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 Brian Golden, Ken Mark 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.
Weaknesses Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Leaf Maple 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Leaf Maple is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Leaf Maple is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Brian Golden, Ken Mark suggests that, Leaf Maple 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Leaf Maple 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. Leaf Maple 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.
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 Leaf Maple supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Leaf Maple vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Leaf Maple 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Leaf Maple has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002, 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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 Leaf Maple has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 HBR case study mentions - Leaf Maple takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Opportunities Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 | 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Leaf Maple 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Leaf Maple to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Leaf Maple 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Leaf Maple 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Leaf Maple 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Leaf Maple 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Leaf Maple can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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.
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. Leaf Maple can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Leaf Maple can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Leaf Maple operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Leaf Maple 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, Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002, 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 Leaf Maple to increase its market reach. Leaf Maple 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Leaf Maple 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 Leaf Maple to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Leaf Maple has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Leaf Maple to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 case study. Leaf Maple can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Leaf Maple 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. Leaf Maple 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.
Threats Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 are -
Increasing wage structure of Leaf Maple
– 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 Leaf Maple.
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. Leaf Maple 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Leaf Maple has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Leaf Maple 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 Leaf Maple in the Organizational Development sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002, Leaf Maple 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Leaf Maple 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. Leaf Maple can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Leaf Maple is facing in Organizational Development sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Leaf Maple 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Leaf Maple 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Leaf Maple 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.
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. Leaf Maple can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Leaf Maple 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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 Maple Leaf Foods (B): Six Sigma in 2002 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 Leaf Maple needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.