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 - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, 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 -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mountain Beer 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.
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.
Organizational Resilience of Mountain Beer
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Mountain Beer does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mountain Beer in the sector have low bargaining power. Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mountain Beer to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mountain Beer is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Mountain Beer needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mountain Beer to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light HBR case study mentions - Mountain Beer 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 Mountain Beer 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Mountain Man Brewing Co.: Bringing the Brand to Light, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Mountain Beer 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.
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.
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 -
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.
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. Mountain Beer 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
– 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Mountain Beer can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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.
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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Mountain Beer 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. Mountain Beer 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mountain Beer to increase its market reach. Mountain Beer 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 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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Mountain Beer 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.
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.
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.
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 -
Environmental challenges
– Mountain Beer 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. Mountain Beer can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing 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 Mountain Beer.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mountain Beer 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mountain Beer 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mountain Beer 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.
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.
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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mountain Beer 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.
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.