Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?
Andrea Torres, director of new product development at a high-end chocolate confectionery company, leads her team through a carefully sequenced program of market research to support the development and launch of a new product, healthy dark chocolate with fruit. This is the first time Montreaux USA, an offshoot of a Swiss confectioner, has created a product specifically for U.S. chocolate consumers. The case explains the steps Torres and her NPD team have completed and describes the decisions that lie ahead, a few months in advance of the anticipated launch. A challenging situation is intensified by a competitor also having tested a dark-chocolate-with-fruit product that was likely to be introduced into the U.S. marketplace in the near future. Students must perform a quantitative analysis as part of their work.
Swot Analysis of "Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?" written by John A. Quelch, Diane Badame includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Chocolate Dark facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competition, Customers, Forecasting, Market research, Product development and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chocolate Dark, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chocolate Dark 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chocolate Dark
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 Chocolate Dark
Strengths Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chocolate Dark in Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Chocolate Dark to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Chocolate Dark to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Chocolate Dark has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Chocolate Dark 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.
Learning organization
- Chocolate Dark 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 Chocolate Dark is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Chocolate Dark 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
– Chocolate Dark 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 Chocolate Dark 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
– Chocolate Dark 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 Chocolate Dark digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Chocolate Dark 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Chocolate Dark is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– Chocolate Dark has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Chocolate Dark to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Chocolate Dark 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 John A. Quelch, Diane Badame 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Chocolate Dark 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 recruit top talent
– Chocolate Dark is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Chocolate Dark 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 - Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Chocolate Dark 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.
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 Chocolate Dark supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Chocolate Dark vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Chocolate Dark 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Chocolate Dark 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 Chocolate Dark, firm in the HBR case study Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Chocolate Dark 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Chocolate Dark has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Chocolate Dark 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Chocolate Dark is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate?, in the dynamic environment Chocolate Dark has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Chocolate Dark has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? | 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Chocolate Dark can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Chocolate Dark operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
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. Chocolate Dark can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Chocolate Dark 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Chocolate Dark 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Chocolate Dark can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Chocolate Dark 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Chocolate Dark to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Chocolate Dark 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 Chocolate Dark to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Chocolate Dark 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
– Chocolate Dark 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Chocolate Dark 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.
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. Chocolate Dark 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. Chocolate Dark 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Chocolate Dark 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Chocolate Dark can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? are -
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. Chocolate Dark 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Chocolate Dark 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.
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 Chocolate Dark in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Chocolate Dark 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. Chocolate Dark can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Chocolate Dark 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? .
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. Chocolate Dark can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Chocolate Dark 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.
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. Chocolate Dark needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Chocolate Dark business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Chocolate Dark 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.
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 Chocolate Dark.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Montreaux Chocolate USA: Are Americans Ready for Healthy Dark Chocolate? 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 Chocolate Dark needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.