New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer
Discusses the introduction of a completely new beverage to the U.S. market. New Century Brewing, which is owned by one of the founders of Boston Beer Co., is a small brewer that outsources production to third-party brewers. It has two products, a light craft beer sold in upscale shops and restaurants, and a caffeinated beer, which is oriented toward younger drinkers mainly between 21 and 25 years of age. Moonshot, created by the legendary masterbrewer, known as the "father of light beer," became the first caffeinated beer in the world. The company follows a differentiation strategy that attempts to appeal to a small niche of customers traditionally ignored by large brewers. Shortly after the introduction of each of its products, large competitors introduced similar products. Nevertheless, Moonshot has a first-to-market advantage that could potentially be leveraged.
Swot Analysis of "New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer" written by Chris Robertson, David Wesley includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Beer Caffeinated facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Gender, Marketing, Pricing, Product development and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization,
geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beer Caffeinated, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beer Caffeinated 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beer Caffeinated
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 Beer Caffeinated
Strengths New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beer Caffeinated in New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Beer Caffeinated in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Beer Caffeinated to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Beer Caffeinated to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Beer Caffeinated 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 Beer Caffeinated digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Beer Caffeinated 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.
High brand equity
– Beer Caffeinated has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Beer Caffeinated to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Beer Caffeinated is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Beer Caffeinated 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 Chris Robertson, David Wesley 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.
Organizational Resilience of Beer Caffeinated
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Beer Caffeinated does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Beer Caffeinated is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Beer Caffeinated in the sector have low bargaining power. New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Beer Caffeinated to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Beer Caffeinated 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 Beer Caffeinated is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Beer Caffeinated is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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.
Weaknesses New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Beer Caffeinated, firm in the HBR case study New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer, it seems that the employees of Beer Caffeinated 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer, in the dynamic environment Beer Caffeinated has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Beer Caffeinated has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Beer Caffeinated 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 Beer Caffeinated is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Beer Caffeinated needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beer Caffeinated to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Beer Caffeinated 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Chris Robertson, David Wesley suggests that, Beer Caffeinated 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 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 Beer Caffeinated supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Beer Caffeinated vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Beer Caffeinated products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Beer Caffeinated needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer HBR case study mentions - Beer Caffeinated 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer, is just above the industry average. Beer Caffeinated needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Opportunities New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer | 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beer Caffeinated in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Beer Caffeinated to increase its market reach. Beer Caffeinated 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.
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. Beer Caffeinated 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. Beer Caffeinated 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Beer Caffeinated 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.
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 Beer Caffeinated in the consumer business. Now Beer Caffeinated can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Beer Caffeinated is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Beer Caffeinated 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Beer Caffeinated 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Beer Caffeinated to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beer Caffeinated can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beer Caffeinated operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
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 Beer Caffeinated 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Beer Caffeinated 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 Beer Caffeinated to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beer Caffeinated can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Beer Caffeinated has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Beer Caffeinated to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer case study. Beer Caffeinated can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beer Caffeinated 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Beer Caffeinated 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Beer Caffeinated needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beer Caffeinated 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.
Environmental challenges
– Beer Caffeinated 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. Beer Caffeinated can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
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. Beer Caffeinated 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Beer Caffeinated has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Beer Caffeinated 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Beer Caffeinated 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. Beer Caffeinated needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Beer Caffeinated 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Beer Caffeinated is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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 New Century Brewing: Moonshot Caffeinated Beer 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 Beer Caffeinated needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.