Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home
The Clique Pens Writing Implements division of U.S. Home is a manufacturer of a full line of pens, pencils, markers, and art supplies. Despite solid sales, division president Elise Ferguson has seen gross margins drop from 42% in 2010 to just over 36% in 2012 as a result of various discounts, allowances, and other off-invoice deals. She is now considering a move away from these discounts in favor of Market Development Funds (MDF), which would be used explicitly to promote retail merchandising activity for Clique and in theory provide the company with more control of trade promotional dollars to influence consumer behavior. Along the way, Ferguson must consider the structure and problems of various trade promotions and the conflicting needs of her sales and marketing departments. This case introduces basic elements of promotion and pricing policy and the challenges of marketing through major mass retailers.
Swot Analysis of "Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home" written by Frank V. Cespedes, James Kindley includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Clique Pens facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Manufacturing, Marketing, Personnel policies, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Clique Pens, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Clique Pens 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Clique Pens
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 Clique Pens
Strengths Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Clique Pens in Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Clique Pens has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Clique Pens to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Clique Pens in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Clique Pens is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Clique Pens 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Clique Pens 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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.
Learning organization
- Clique Pens 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 Clique Pens is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Clique Pens in the sector have low bargaining power. Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Clique Pens to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Clique Pens has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Clique Pens 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Clique Pens is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Clique Pens is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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
– Clique Pens 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 Frank V. Cespedes, James Kindley 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.
Weaknesses Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Clique Pens, firm in the HBR case study Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Clique Pens vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Frank V. Cespedes, James Kindley suggests that, Clique Pens 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Clique Pens 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home, it seems that the employees of Clique Pens 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Clique Pens 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Clique Pens is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Clique Pens needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Clique Pens 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, Clique Pens 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Clique Pens has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Clique Pens even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home | 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home are -
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. Clique Pens can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Clique Pens can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Clique Pens to increase its market reach. Clique Pens 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. Clique Pens 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. Clique Pens 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Clique Pens 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Clique Pens 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Clique Pens 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Clique Pens 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Clique Pens to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Clique Pens can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Clique Pens has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Clique Pens to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home case study. Clique Pens can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Clique Pens 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Clique Pens can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Clique Pens operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Clique Pens 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, Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Clique Pens 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home .
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. Clique Pens needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Clique Pens 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. Clique Pens can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing wage structure of Clique Pens
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Clique Pens.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Clique Pens with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Clique Pens is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Clique Pens 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
– Clique Pens 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Clique Pens 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Clique Pens 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.
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. Clique Pens 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Clique Pens 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens: The Writing Implements Division of U.S. Home 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 Clique Pens needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.