Case Study Description of Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy
The founder of a bricks-and-mortar kitchen accessories retail store, Jill's Table, is considering the expansion of her existing information-based website to an e-commerce presence, but wonders whether the factors that have led to her current success can be replicated in the virtual world. Students are asked to make decisions related to translating brand values from the real world to the virtual world; overcoming technological hurdles; addressing design issues in terms of the user experience; developing a content marketing and digital promotions strategy, including social media and email marketing; determining a pricing strategy; planning for fulfillment and returns; handling customer service and measuring performance.
Swot Analysis of "Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy" written by Raymond Pirouz, Janice Zolf includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Jill's Table facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jill's Table, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jill's Table 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jill's Table
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 Jill's Table
Strengths Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jill's Table in Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jill's Table to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jill's Table to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jill's Table in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jill's Table 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jill's Table 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Jill's Table is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Jill's Table
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Jill's Table does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jill's Table is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Jill's Table 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 Jill's Table in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jill's Table in the sector have low bargaining power. Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jill's Table to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jill's Table 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jill's Table has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jill's Table 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.
Weaknesses Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jill's Table is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jill's Table 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jill's Table 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. Jill's Table 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jill's Table products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jill's Table needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Jill's Table 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Jill's Table 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 - Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Jill's Table, firm in the HBR case study Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jill's Table 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Raymond Pirouz, Janice Zolf suggests that, Jill's Table 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jill's Table has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
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 Jill's Table supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Jill's Table vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy | 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jill's Table to increase its market reach. Jill's Table 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Jill's Table 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Jill's Table 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jill's Table 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jill's Table 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jill's Table 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 Jill's Table can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jill's Table 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jill's Table is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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 Jill's Table in the consumer business. Now Jill's Table can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Jill's Table can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jill's Table 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jill's Table has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Jill's Table to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy case study. Jill's Table can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Jill's Table 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. Jill's Table 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.
Threats Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jill's Table 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.
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 Jill's Table business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jill's Table 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy .
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. Jill's Table can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jill's Table 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.
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
– Jill's Table 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.
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. Jill's Table needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Jill's Table
– 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 Jill's Table.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Jill's Table with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Jill's Table 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Jill's Table 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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 Jill's Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy 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 Jill's Table needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
