Case Study Description of Marketing James Patterson
Can a successful novelist use direct-to-consumer marketing to grow his brand? The author, who in a previous career ran a major advertising agency, uses advertising with great success to build his stature as a crime fiction writer. Further, he applies his experience at managing the advertising creative process to employ co-authors on a "literary assembly line," turning out more product than any other best-selling author. Now he considers whether book clubs can be used to systematically build buzz for his new releases. Is it time for a shift to direct mail and one-to-one marketing, or is fame in the book business only won in the limelight of publicity and broadcast marketing?
Swot Analysis of "Marketing James Patterson" written by John Deighton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Advertising Book facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Marketing James Patterson case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Creativity, Customers, Manufacturing, Market research and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Marketing James Patterson casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Marketing James Patterson
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Marketing James Patterson case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Advertising Book, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Advertising Book 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 Marketing James Patterson can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Marketing James Patterson case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Advertising Book
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 Advertising Book
Strengths Marketing James Patterson | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Advertising Book in Marketing James Patterson Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Advertising Book 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 Advertising Book is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Marketing James Patterson Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Advertising Book is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Marketing James Patterson are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Advertising Book is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Advertising Book 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 Marketing James Patterson - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Advertising Book 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.
Organizational Resilience of Advertising Book
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Advertising Book does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Advertising Book 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 Advertising Book in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Advertising Book 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 Deighton 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Advertising Book is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Marketing James Patterson 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 Marketing James Patterson 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Advertising Book 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 Marketing James Patterson HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Advertising Book 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.
Weaknesses Marketing James Patterson | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Marketing James Patterson are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Advertising Book has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Advertising Book is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Advertising Book needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Advertising Book to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Marketing James Patterson 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 Marketing James Patterson can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Advertising Book is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Marketing James Patterson 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 Advertising Book 's lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Advertising Book products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Advertising Book needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Advertising Book 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. Advertising Book 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Marketing James Patterson, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Advertising Book 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 - Marketing James Patterson should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Marketing James Patterson HBR case study mentions - Advertising Book 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Advertising Book needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Marketing James Patterson 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 Advertising Book has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Marketing James Patterson | 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 Marketing James Patterson are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Advertising Book 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 Advertising Book to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Advertising Book 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Advertising Book is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Marketing James Patterson 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.
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 Advertising Book in the consumer business. Now Advertising Book 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 Advertising Book has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Advertising Book to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Marketing James Patterson case study. Advertising Book can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Advertising Book 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, Marketing James Patterson, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Advertising Book can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Advertising Book operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Advertising Book 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Advertising Book 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.
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. Advertising Book can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Advertising Book to increase its market reach. Advertising Book 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Advertising Book 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 Marketing James Patterson - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Advertising Book to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Advertising Book can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Marketing James Patterson External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Marketing James Patterson are -
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.
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. Advertising Book 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.
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. Advertising Book can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Advertising Book needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Advertising Book with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Advertising Book.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Advertising Book is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Advertising Book 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Advertising Book has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Advertising Book 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Advertising Book 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 Marketing James Patterson .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Advertising Book 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
– Advertising Book 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Marketing James Patterson 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 Marketing James Patterson 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 Marketing James Patterson 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 Marketing James Patterson 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 Marketing James Patterson 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 Advertising Book needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
