The Salty Snacks case is a data analysis exercise using Excel. The case uses real data from a consumer goods panel. It presents the student with a table of purchase duplications for a set of salty snack brands, and the student's task is to identify the competitive structure of the market, that is, which brands compete more intensely with each other. The task is similar to what brand managers in consumer goods companies face on a regular basis. The case provides excellent skill development in Excel, is instructive about how to analyze competition and informs students about an empirical generalization in marketing: the Duplication of Purchase Law.
Swot Analysis of "Salty Snacks" written by John Dawes includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Salty Snacks facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Salty Snacks case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Branding, Competition, Customers and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Salty Snacks casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Salty Snacks case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Salty Snacks, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Salty Snacks case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Salty Snacks
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 Salty Snacks
Strengths Salty Snacks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Salty Snacks in Salty Snacks Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Salty Snacks 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 Dawes 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Salty Snacks is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Salty Snacks are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Salty Snacks has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Salty Snacks 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Salty Snacks digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Salty Snacks 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Salty Snacks firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Salty Snacks to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Salty Snacks to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Salty Snacks
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Salty Snacks does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Salty Snacks is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Salty Snacks Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Salty Snacks in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Salty Snacks in the sector have low bargaining power. Salty Snacks has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Salty Snacks to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Salty Snacks is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Salty Snacks are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Salty Snacks is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Salty Snacks needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Salty Snacks to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Salty Snacks 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John Dawes suggests that, Salty Snacks 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Salty Snacks, is just above the industry average. Salty Snacks 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Salty Snacks 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 - Salty Snacks should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Salty Snacks is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Salty Snacks can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Salty Snacks, it seems that the employees of Salty Snacks 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Salty Snacks has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Salty Snacks, 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, Salty Snacks 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.
Opportunities Salty Snacks | 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 Salty Snacks are -
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 Salty Snacks in the consumer business. Now Salty Snacks can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Salty Snacks has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Salty Snacks to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Salty Snacks case study. Salty Snacks can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Salty Snacks can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
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 Salty Snacks 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Salty Snacks 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. Salty Snacks 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. Salty Snacks 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Salty Snacks 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Salty Snacks 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Salty Snacks can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Salty Snacks 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Salty Snacks is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Salty Snacks 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Salty Snacks 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.
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. Salty Snacks can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Salty Snacks can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Salty Snacks External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Salty Snacks are -
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
– Salty Snacks 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Salty Snacks with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Salty Snacks 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.
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 Salty Snacks business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Salty Snacks 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Salty Snacks is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Salty Snacks.
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. Salty Snacks 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Salty Snacks 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Salty Snacks has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Salty Snacks 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. Salty Snacks can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks 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 Salty Snacks needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
