Case Study Description of MMI Product Placement, Inc.
The president of a national placement agency is preparing to make a final pitch to sign Greyhound Canada as a client. Greyhound wants to reposition its brand as a mainstream travel option, particularly for suburban commuters, and needs cost-effective ways to get its message to consumers. The company views product placement as a viable tool for building brand awareness, but worries about losing control over its brand image. Even more serious are concerns about the absence of reliable metrics to assess the overall effectiveness of product placement. The case covers fundamentals of product placement, particularly with respect to strengths and weaknesses, and provides an excellent basis for discussing its value as part of an overall marketing communications strategy.
Authors :: Robin Ritchie, Chandra Sekhar Ramasastry
Swot Analysis of "MMI Product Placement, Inc." written by Robin Ritchie, Chandra Sekhar Ramasastry includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Placement Greyhound facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in MMI Product Placement, Inc. case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Communication and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the MMI Product Placement, Inc. casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of MMI Product Placement, Inc.
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in MMI Product Placement, Inc. case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Placement Greyhound, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Placement Greyhound 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in MMI Product Placement, Inc. case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Placement Greyhound
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 Placement Greyhound
Strengths MMI Product Placement, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Placement Greyhound in MMI Product Placement, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Placement Greyhound
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Placement Greyhound does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Placement Greyhound is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Placement Greyhound has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Placement Greyhound to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Placement Greyhound in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Placement Greyhound is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the MMI Product Placement, Inc. are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Placement Greyhound 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.
Training and development
– Placement Greyhound has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Placement Greyhound 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 Placement Greyhound in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Placement Greyhound is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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.
Learning organization
- Placement Greyhound 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 Placement Greyhound is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in MMI Product Placement, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Placement Greyhound is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in MMI Product Placement, Inc. Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Placement Greyhound 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses MMI Product Placement, Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of MMI Product Placement, Inc. are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Placement Greyhound 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Placement Greyhound, firm in the HBR case study MMI Product Placement, Inc. needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study MMI Product Placement, Inc., in the dynamic environment Placement Greyhound has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Placement Greyhound has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Placement Greyhound 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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 Placement Greyhound 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Placement Greyhound is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Placement Greyhound needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Placement Greyhound to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study MMI Product Placement, Inc., 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study MMI Product Placement, Inc., it seems that the employees of Placement Greyhound 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Placement Greyhound 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 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 Placement Greyhound supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - MMI Product Placement, Inc., it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Placement Greyhound vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Placement Greyhound products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Placement Greyhound needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities MMI Product Placement, Inc. | 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. are -
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 Placement Greyhound 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Placement Greyhound 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, MMI Product Placement, Inc., 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, Placement Greyhound 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
– Placement Greyhound 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Placement Greyhound to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Placement Greyhound has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Placement Greyhound to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the MMI Product Placement, Inc. case study. Placement Greyhound can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Placement Greyhound 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Placement Greyhound 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Placement Greyhound can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Placement Greyhound can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Placement Greyhound 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Placement Greyhound can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Placement Greyhound operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Placement Greyhound 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Placement Greyhound is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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.
Threats MMI Product Placement, Inc. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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.
Increasing wage structure of Placement Greyhound
– 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 Placement Greyhound.
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. Placement Greyhound can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Placement Greyhound.
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. Placement Greyhound needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Placement Greyhound in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study MMI Product Placement, Inc., Placement Greyhound 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Placement Greyhound has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Placement Greyhound 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, Placement Greyhound 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Placement Greyhound 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Placement Greyhound is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Placement Greyhound 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Placement Greyhound 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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 MMI Product Placement, Inc. 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 Placement Greyhound needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.