Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version
Priceline.com is a new concept shifting the setting of price from sellers to buyers. The company aspires to use its patented process of advertising units of demand at named prices to suppliers in many categories. This case focuses on its initial use in the airline industry.
Swot Analysis of "Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version" written by Robert J. Dolan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Priceline.com Aspires facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Pricing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Priceline.com Aspires, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Priceline.com Aspires 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Priceline.com Aspires
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 Priceline.com Aspires
Strengths Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Priceline.com Aspires in Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Priceline.com Aspires 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Priceline.com Aspires 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Priceline.com Aspires to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Priceline.com Aspires to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Priceline.com Aspires is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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.
High brand equity
– Priceline.com Aspires has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Priceline.com Aspires to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Priceline.com Aspires in the sector have low bargaining power. Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Priceline.com Aspires to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Priceline.com Aspires 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 Priceline.com Aspires is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Priceline.com Aspires 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 Robert J. Dolan 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.
Training and development
– Priceline.com Aspires has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Priceline.com Aspires has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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.
Weaknesses Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version, it seems that the employees of Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Priceline.com Aspires 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 - Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Priceline.com Aspires 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.
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 Priceline.com Aspires supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Priceline.com Aspires vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Priceline.com Aspires 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. Priceline.com Aspires even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version HBR case study mentions - Priceline.com Aspires 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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 Priceline.com Aspires 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version, in the dynamic environment Priceline.com Aspires has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Priceline.com Aspires has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version | 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version are -
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. Priceline.com Aspires 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. Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Priceline.com Aspires to increase its market reach. Priceline.com Aspires 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.
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 Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Priceline.com Aspires is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Priceline.com Aspires can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Priceline.com Aspires can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Priceline.com Aspires 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
– Priceline.com Aspires 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
– Priceline.com Aspires 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.
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 Priceline.com Aspires in the consumer business. Now Priceline.com Aspires can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version are -
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. Priceline.com Aspires needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Priceline.com Aspires 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Priceline.com Aspires 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.
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 Priceline.com Aspires.
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 Priceline.com Aspires
– 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 Priceline.com Aspires.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Priceline.com Aspires has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Priceline.com Aspires 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Priceline.com Aspires is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Priceline.com Aspires business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version, Priceline.com Aspires 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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 Priceline.com: Name Your Own Price, Spanish Version 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 Priceline.com Aspires needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
