Case Study Description of Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C)
The results were not promising following the initial campaign and launch of Wheaties Fuel as sales dipped five months after it had been put on store shelves. Still there was a 96% incremental gain in sales of the original Wheaties, and many of its new consumers were younger than usual. Based on the initial feedback, the team began using a lighter tone in its messaging, and continued to monitor, learn, and optimize the product and the campaign.
Swot Analysis of "Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C)" written by Marian Moore, Adam Weinberg includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wheaties Dipped facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices,
wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wheaties Dipped, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wheaties Dipped 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wheaties Dipped
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 Wheaties Dipped
Strengths Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wheaties Dipped in Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Wheaties Dipped
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Wheaties Dipped does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Wheaties Dipped has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wheaties Dipped to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Wheaties Dipped has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Wheaties Dipped has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Wheaties Dipped 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wheaties Dipped 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Wheaties Dipped 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 Wheaties Dipped is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wheaties Dipped is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Wheaties Dipped is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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.
Analytics focus
– Wheaties Dipped 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 Marian Moore, Adam Weinberg 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Wheaties Dipped to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Wheaties Dipped to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Wheaties Dipped is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Wheaties Dipped 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wheaties Dipped products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wheaties Dipped needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Wheaties Dipped 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wheaties Dipped is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wheaties Dipped 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Wheaties Dipped 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C), in the dynamic environment Wheaties Dipped has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Wheaties Dipped has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) HBR case study mentions - Wheaties Dipped 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Wheaties Dipped 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 - Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C), it seems that the employees of Wheaties Dipped 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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 Wheaties Dipped 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) | 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wheaties Dipped 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Wheaties Dipped 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, Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Wheaties Dipped 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Wheaties Dipped can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wheaties Dipped operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
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 Wheaties Dipped in the consumer business. Now Wheaties Dipped can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Wheaties Dipped 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Wheaties Dipped is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Wheaties Dipped 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.
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. Wheaties Dipped can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Wheaties Dipped 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. Wheaties Dipped can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wheaties Dipped to increase its market reach. Wheaties Dipped 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Wheaties Dipped 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Wheaties Dipped can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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.
Threats Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Wheaties Dipped 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 Wheaties Dipped.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wheaties Dipped 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.
Environmental challenges
– Wheaties Dipped 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. Wheaties Dipped can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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 Wheaties Dipped business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Wheaties Dipped 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, Wheaties Dipped 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Wheaties Dipped 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wheaties Dipped 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Wheaties Dipped 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 Wheaties Dipped 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.
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. Wheaties Dipped needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Wheaties Dipped in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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 Wheaties: Reinvigorating an Iconic Brand (C) 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 Wheaties Dipped needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
