Case Study Description of Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.Having bought Shaklee Corporation from Yamanouchi, Roger Barnett, its owner and CEO, wrestled with the question of how to grow the company and its reputation for environmental sustainability. In addition to preserving the "network marketing" nature of its sales channel (because it creates jobs and entrepreneurs), Barnett wished to take the business model to sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Authors :: Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan, Alison Comings
Topics :: Sales & Marketing
Tags :: Economic development, Growth strategy, International business, Marketing, Public relations, Sales, Social responsibility, Sustainability, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility" written by Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan, Alison Comings includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Shaklee Barnett facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economic development, Growth strategy, International business, Marketing, Public relations, Sales, Social responsibility, Sustainability and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices,
increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shaklee Barnett, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shaklee Barnett 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shaklee Barnett
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 Shaklee Barnett
Strengths Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shaklee Barnett in Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shaklee Barnett in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shaklee Barnett 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Shaklee Barnett has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shaklee Barnett to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Shaklee Barnett is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shaklee Barnett is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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
– Shaklee Barnett is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shaklee Barnett in the sector have low bargaining power. Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shaklee Barnett to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Shaklee Barnett 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 Shaklee Barnett is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Shaklee Barnett 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 Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan, Alison Comings 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.
Organizational Resilience of Shaklee Barnett
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Shaklee Barnett does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Shaklee Barnett 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
– Shaklee Barnett is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shaklee Barnett is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Shaklee Barnett 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 Shaklee Barnett products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shaklee Barnett needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shaklee Barnett is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility, it seems that the employees of Shaklee Barnett 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 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 Shaklee Barnett supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shaklee Barnett vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility HBR case study mentions - Shaklee Barnett 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Barnett has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Shaklee Barnett 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility, in the dynamic environment Shaklee Barnett has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shaklee Barnett has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Christopher Marquis, V. Kasturi Rangan, Alison Comings suggests that, Shaklee Barnett 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.
Opportunities Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility | 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shaklee Barnett 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shaklee Barnett to increase its market reach. Shaklee Barnett 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Shaklee Barnett 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shaklee Barnett has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Shaklee Barnett to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility case study. Shaklee Barnett can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shaklee Barnett is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shaklee Barnett can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shaklee Barnett operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shaklee Barnett 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shaklee Barnett 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shaklee Barnett 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shaklee Barnett to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Shaklee Barnett has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Shaklee Barnett 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.
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. Shaklee Barnett 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. Shaklee Barnett 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Shaklee Barnett to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility, Shaklee Barnett 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 .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shaklee Barnett 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility .
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shaklee Barnett 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shaklee Barnett is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Shaklee Barnett
– 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 Shaklee Barnett.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Shaklee Barnett with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Shaklee Barnett 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. Shaklee Barnett can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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. Shaklee Barnett needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Shaklee Barnett.
Regulatory challenges
– Shaklee Barnett 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
– Shaklee Barnett has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shaklee Barnett 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility 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 Shaklee Barnett needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
