Case Study Description of Beverly Stern: Retail Executive
Beverly Stern has been a successful operating manager in three prominent retail chains: GAP, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma. Stern's last job at a start-up did not meet her expectations, and she must now decide what to do next. She has an offer to start a new retail division of Gymboree. The case allows students to understand the career of a successful "merchandising" executive and to determine key personal characteristics and skills that support a successful career. Contains examples of what Stern learned as she progressed in her career and provides insights into the professional challenges that would be criteria for job choice.
Authors :: H. Kent Bowen, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
Swot Analysis of "Beverly Stern: Retail Executive" written by H. Kent Bowen, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Stern Beverly facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Beverly Stern: Retail Executive case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Decision making, Gender, Operations management, Sales and Organizational Development.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Beverly Stern: Retail Executive casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Beverly Stern: Retail Executive
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Beverly Stern: Retail Executive case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Stern Beverly, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Stern Beverly 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Beverly Stern: Retail Executive case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Stern Beverly
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 Stern Beverly
Strengths Beverly Stern: Retail Executive | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Stern Beverly in Beverly Stern: Retail Executive Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Organizational Development industry
– Beverly Stern: Retail Executive firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Stern Beverly to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Organizational Development industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Stern Beverly to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Stern Beverly is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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.
Learning organization
- Stern Beverly 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 Stern Beverly is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Beverly Stern: Retail Executive Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Stern Beverly has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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.
Digital Transformation in Organizational Development segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Stern Beverly digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Stern Beverly has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Analytics focus
– Stern Beverly 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 H. Kent Bowen, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld 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.
High brand equity
– Stern Beverly has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Stern Beverly to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Stern Beverly is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Beverly Stern: Retail Executive are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Stern Beverly 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Stern Beverly 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Stern Beverly is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Beverly Stern: Retail Executive Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Beverly Stern: Retail Executive | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Beverly Stern: Retail Executive are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Beverly Stern: Retail Executive HBR case study mentions - Stern Beverly 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Stern Beverly 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Stern Beverly 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
Stern Beverly 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Stern Beverly has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Beverly Stern: Retail Executive should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Stern Beverly products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Stern Beverly needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Beverly Stern: Retail Executive, is just above the industry average. Stern Beverly 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 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 Stern Beverly supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Beverly Stern: Retail Executive, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Stern Beverly vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Stern Beverly, firm in the HBR case study Beverly Stern: Retail Executive needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Stern Beverly 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Stern Beverly 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. Stern Beverly 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.
Opportunities Beverly Stern: Retail Executive | 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Stern Beverly to increase its market reach. Stern Beverly 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. Stern Beverly 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. Stern Beverly 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.
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. Stern Beverly 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
– Stern Beverly can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Stern Beverly has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Stern Beverly 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Stern Beverly can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Stern Beverly operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Organizational Development sector.
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 Stern Beverly in the consumer business. Now Stern Beverly can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Stern Beverly can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Stern Beverly can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Stern Beverly can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Organizational Development segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Stern Beverly 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 Stern Beverly 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.
Threats Beverly Stern: Retail Executive External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Beverly Stern: Retail Executive are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Stern Beverly 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 Stern Beverly with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Stern Beverly 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Stern Beverly 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. Stern Beverly can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Organizational Development industry.
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 Stern Beverly.
Regulatory challenges
– Stern Beverly 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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Stern Beverly business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Beverly Stern: Retail Executive, Stern Beverly 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Stern Beverly has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Organizational Development industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Stern Beverly 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Stern Beverly 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive .
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. Stern Beverly needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Organizational Development industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Stern Beverly 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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 Beverly Stern: Retail Executive 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 Stern Beverly needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.