Case Study Description of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities
The general manager of GlaxoSmithKline India has been tasked to increase annual sales of the health food drink Boost to upwards of 18 per cent, without any significant change in contribution margins.Repositioning the brand could increase the size of the target market, but may also jeopardize the brand's sharply defined positioning. Attempting expansion of the distribution network, where the competition is strong and deeply entrenched, might strain company resources and may even be counterproductive. Executing the two strategies will require entirely different skills and the deployment of diverse resources. The general manager needs to make a firm and calculated choice. Jaydeep Mukherjee is affiliated with Management Development Institute.
Swot Analysis of "Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities" written by Jaydeep Mukherjee, Sriram Padmanabhan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Boost Margins.repositioning facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities casestudy better are - – technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Boost Margins.repositioning, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Boost Margins.repositioning
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 Boost Margins.repositioning
Strengths Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Boost Margins.repositioning in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Boost Margins.repositioning is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Analytics focus
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Jaydeep Mukherjee, Sriram Padmanabhan 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Boost Margins.repositioning has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Organizational Resilience of Boost Margins.repositioning
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Boost Margins.repositioning does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Boost Margins.repositioning digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Boost Margins.repositioning has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Boost Margins.repositioning in the sector have low bargaining power. Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Boost Margins.repositioning to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Boost Margins.repositioning has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boost Margins.repositioning in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Boost Margins.repositioning to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Boost Margins.repositioning to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boost Margins.repositioning 's lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Boost Margins.repositioning is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boost Margins.repositioning has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, is just above the industry average. Boost Margins.repositioning needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jaydeep Mukherjee, Sriram Padmanabhan suggests that, Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Boost Margins.repositioning has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, in the dynamic environment Boost Margins.repositioning has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Boost Margins.repositioning has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities HBR case study mentions - Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Opportunities Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities | 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities are -
Loyalty marketing
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Boost Margins.repositioning 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, Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Boost Margins.repositioning is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Boost Margins.repositioning can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Boost Margins.repositioning to increase its market reach. Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning 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. Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Boost Margins.repositioning to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Boost Margins.repositioning in the consumer business. Now Boost Margins.repositioning can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, Boost Margins.repositioning may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Boost Margins.repositioning.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Environmental challenges
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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. Boost Margins.repositioning can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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 Boost Margins.repositioning in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Boost Margins.repositioning has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Boost Margins.repositioning business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boost Margins.repositioning needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.