Case Study Description of Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.Highlights the key role of selecting creative in brand communications, the challenges of building a brand in a turbulent cultural environment, the challenges of extending an advertising campaign, and the interpretation of ads as a crucial senior management skill. Includes color exhibits.
Swot Analysis of "Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative" written by Douglas B. Holt includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Selecting Color.highlights facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Creativity and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Selecting Color.highlights, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Selecting Color.highlights 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Selecting Color.highlights
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 Selecting Color.highlights
Strengths Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Selecting Color.highlights in Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Selecting Color.highlights has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Organizational Resilience of Selecting Color.highlights
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Selecting Color.highlights does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Selecting Color.highlights has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Selecting Color.highlights to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Selecting Color.highlights 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 Selecting Color.highlights in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Selecting Color.highlights is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Selecting Color.highlights in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Selecting Color.highlights in the sector have low bargaining power. Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Selecting Color.highlights to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Selecting Color.highlights is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Selecting Color.highlights has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Selecting Color.highlights 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Selecting Color.highlights, firm in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative, it seems that the employees of Selecting Color.highlights 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative 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 Selecting Color.highlights has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Douglas B. Holt suggests that, Selecting Color.highlights is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative 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 Selecting Color.highlights 's lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Selecting Color.highlights 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 - Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Selecting Color.highlights 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. Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Selecting Color.highlights 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Opportunities Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative | 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Selecting Color.highlights to increase its market reach. Selecting Color.highlights 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.
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 Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Selecting Color.highlights 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.
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. Selecting Color.highlights 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. Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Selecting Color.highlights is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Selecting Color.highlights 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 Selecting Color.highlights to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Selecting Color.highlights has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Selecting Color.highlights to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative case study. Selecting Color.highlights can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Selecting Color.highlights can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Selecting Color.highlights in the consumer business. Now Selecting Color.highlights can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Selecting Color.highlights 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
– Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Selecting Color.highlights can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Threats Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Selecting Color.highlights with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Selecting Color.highlights 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 Selecting Color.highlights 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Selecting Color.highlights has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Selecting Color.highlights 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 wage structure of Selecting Color.highlights
– 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 Selecting Color.highlights.
Environmental challenges
– Selecting Color.highlights 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. Selecting Color.highlights can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
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. Selecting Color.highlights can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Selecting Color.highlights 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.
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 Selecting Color.highlights.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Selecting Color.highlights 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Selecting Color.highlights high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative 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 Dew: Selecting New Creative 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 Selecting Color.highlights needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.