Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?
PepsiCo faces criticism after releasing a series of online advertisements for Mountain Dew that featured an angry Mountain Dew-drinking goat, a battered white woman on crutches and the goat in a police lineup of all black men. Critics are offended by the advertisement's portrayal of violence toward women and racial stereotypes. As the public outcry spreads, Mountain Dew's senior brand manager needs to devise a course of action or risk damage to one of its billion-dollar brands.
Swot Analysis of "Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?" written by Jana Seijts, Paul Bigus includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dew Mountain facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dew Mountain, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dew Mountain operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dew Mountain
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 Dew Mountain
Strengths Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dew Mountain in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dew Mountain 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 Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dew Mountain digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dew Mountain 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.
Training and development
– Dew Mountain has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dew Mountain in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Dew Mountain is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dew Mountain to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dew Mountain to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dew Mountain has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dew Mountain is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? 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.
Analytics focus
– Dew Mountain 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 Jana Seijts, Paul Bigus 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dew Mountain has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dew Mountain 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? 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.
Weaknesses Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Dew Mountain 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, in the dynamic environment Dew Mountain has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dew Mountain has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dew Mountain 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Dew Mountain 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? 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 Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dew Mountain is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Dew Mountain, firm in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Dew Mountain supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dew Mountain vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Dew Mountain 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dew Mountain products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dew Mountain needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, is just above the industry average. Dew Mountain 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 Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dew Mountain 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dew Mountain 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dew Mountain 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 Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dew Mountain to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dew Mountain is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dew Mountain 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, Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, 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, Dew Mountain 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dew Mountain to increase its market reach. Dew Mountain 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dew Mountain can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dew Mountain operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Dew Mountain can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? 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.
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 Dew Mountain in the consumer business. Now Dew Mountain can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dew Mountain 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 Dew Mountain to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Dew Mountain can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Dew Mountain can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? are -
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 Dew Mountain in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Dew Mountain business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dew Mountain can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dew Mountain is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Dew Mountain 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, Dew Mountain may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
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.
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 Dew Mountain.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Dew Mountain with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dew Mountain 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dew Mountain 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dew Mountain 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dew Mountain has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dew Mountain 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History? 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 Dew Mountain needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.