Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light
When students have the English-language PDF of this Brief Case in a coursepack, they will also have the option to purchase an audio version.Chris Prangel, a recent MBA graduate, has returned home to West Virginia to manage the marketing operations of the Mountain Man Beer Company, a family-owned business he stands to inherit in five years. Mountain Man brews just one beer, Mountain Man Lager, also known as "West Virginia's beer" and popular among blue-collar workers. Due to changes in beer drinkers' taste preferences, the company is now experiencing declining sales for the first time in its history. In response, Chris wants to launch Mountain Man Light, a "light beer" formulation of Mountain Man Lager, in the hope of attracting younger drinkers to the brand. However, he encounters resistance from senior managers. Mountain Man Lager's brand equity is a key asset for Mountain Man Brewing Company. The question is whether Mountain Man Light will enhance it, detract from it, or irreversibly damage it.
Swot Analysis of "Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light" written by Heide Abelli includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mountain Beer facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Branding, Budgeting, Demographics, Financial analysis, Forecasting, Performance measurement, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mountain Beer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mountain Beer
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 Mountain Beer
Strengths Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mountain Beer in Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mountain Beer 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.
Learning organization
- Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Beer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Mountain Beer is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Mountain Beer has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mountain Beer in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mountain Beer has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mountain Beer 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 lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Beer in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mountain Beer is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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
– Mountain Beer is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mountain Beer digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mountain Beer 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
– Mountain Beer 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 Heide Abelli 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light, it seems that the employees of Mountain Beer 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mountain Beer products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mountain Beer needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mountain Beer 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Mountain Beer 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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 Mountain Beer 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Mountain Beer, firm in the HBR case study Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mountain Beer is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mountain Beer 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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 Mountain Beer has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Mountain Beer supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mountain Beer vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mountain Beer 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.
Opportunities Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light | 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Beer to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Mountain Beer in the consumer business. Now Mountain Beer can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mountain Beer 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 Sales & Marketing segment.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mountain Beer can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mountain Beer to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mountain Beer 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Mountain Beer 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mountain Beer can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mountain Beer can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mountain Beer operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Mountain Beer can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mountain Beer is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mountain Beer has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Mountain Beer to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light case study. Mountain Beer can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Mountain Beer 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.
Threats Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light are -
Increasing wage structure of Mountain Beer
– 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 Mountain Beer.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mountain Beer has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mountain Beer 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light .
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mountain Beer can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Mountain Beer business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Mountain Beer with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Mountain Beer needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Mountain Beer.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light, Mountain Beer may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
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. Mountain Beer 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.
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 Mountain Beer in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light 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 Mountain Beer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
