Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A)
American Securities Capital (AS), a private equity firm based in New York City, seeks to research and analyze the Chinese foodservice market, to assess opportunities for AS portfolio restaurant chains and identify additional restaurant related opportunities. Tasked with this project is a newly hired director (post-MBA, ex-consultant) in AS's Shanghai office. A market survey has now been conducted. What are the appropriate takeaways? How can AS segment the market, and what does each segment want from a Western dining experience?
Swot Analysis of "Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A)" written by Wesley R. Hartmann, Arar Han includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Restaurant Securities facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurial finance, Globalization, Market research and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Restaurant Securities, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Restaurant Securities 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Restaurant Securities
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Restaurant Securities
Strengths Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Restaurant Securities in Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Restaurant Securities is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Restaurant Securities in the sector have low bargaining power. Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Restaurant Securities to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Restaurant Securities
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Restaurant Securities does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Restaurant Securities in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Restaurant Securities 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 Restaurant Securities in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Restaurant Securities 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 Restaurant Securities is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Restaurant Securities has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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.
Analytics focus
– Restaurant Securities 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 Wesley R. Hartmann, Arar Han 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
– Restaurant Securities is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Restaurant Securities digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Restaurant Securities 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Restaurant Securities is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Restaurant Securities 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.
Weaknesses Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A), it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Restaurant Securities 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Restaurant Securities 's lucrative customers.
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 Restaurant Securities supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Restaurant Securities vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Restaurant Securities has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Restaurant Securities has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Restaurant Securities is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Restaurant Securities 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A), in the dynamic environment Restaurant Securities has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Restaurant Securities has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A), it seems that the employees of Restaurant Securities don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Need for greater diversity
– Restaurant Securities 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.
Opportunities Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) | 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Restaurant Securities 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Restaurant Securities 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Restaurant Securities can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Restaurant Securities to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Restaurant Securities in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Restaurant Securities can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Restaurant Securities operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Restaurant Securities to increase its market reach. Restaurant Securities 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Restaurant Securities is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Restaurant Securities can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Restaurant Securities 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Restaurant Securities can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Restaurant Securities 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Restaurant Securities 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, Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) are -
Environmental challenges
– Restaurant Securities 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. Restaurant Securities can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Restaurant Securities has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Restaurant Securities needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing 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 Restaurant Securities in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Restaurant Securities business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Restaurant Securities can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Restaurant Securities needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Restaurant Securities 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Restaurant Securities in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing 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 wage structure of Restaurant Securities
– 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 Restaurant Securities.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Restaurant Securities is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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
– Restaurant Securities 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.
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 Restaurant Securities.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Assessing the Chinese Palate: American Securities Capital (A) 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 Restaurant Securities needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.