Case Study Description of Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money
DuPont Canada manufactures and sells the raw materials that are used to produce brand name home renovation and home decorating products, including fabrics, carpets, countertops, and paints. To develop relationships with consumers and acquire information on their purchasing needs and purchasing patterns, the company launched a web site that offered decorating idea and product information through a virtual home. After 12 months, the company's project team must decide whether the project was a worthwhile investment and whether they should invest in the second phase. In making their decision, they need to identify the performance metrics to use in estimating the return on investment. They also need to determine whether to pursue revenue generation through the sale of advertising space or online sales through the web site. Finally, the project team must assess whether their value chain partners would be willing to invest in the second phase of the project.
Swot Analysis of "Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money" written by Kersi Antia, Ilia Frolov, Bharat Sud includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Decorating Project facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Internet, Market research, Performance measurement and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Decorating Project, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Decorating Project 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Decorating Project
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 Decorating Project
Strengths Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Decorating Project in Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Decorating Project digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Decorating Project 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Decorating Project 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Decorating Project is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Decorating Project in the sector have low bargaining power. Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Decorating Project to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Decorating Project 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 Decorating Project is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Decorating Project to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Decorating Project to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Decorating Project is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Decorating Project in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Decorating Project has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Decorating Project 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Decorating Project 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 Decorating Project in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Decorating Project has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Decorating Project to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money are -
Need for greater diversity
– Decorating Project 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money HBR case study mentions - Decorating Project 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Decorating Project 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Decorating Project is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Decorating Project needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Decorating Project to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Decorating Project 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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 Decorating Project has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Decorating Project 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 - Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money, is just above the industry average. Decorating Project 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Decorating Project products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Decorating Project needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Decorating Project 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. Decorating Project 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money, in the dynamic environment Decorating Project has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Decorating Project has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money | 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Decorating Project is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Decorating Project 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Decorating Project 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Decorating Project to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Decorating Project to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Decorating Project 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. Decorating Project 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. Decorating Project 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Decorating Project 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.
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 Decorating Project 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Decorating Project has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Decorating Project to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money case study. Decorating Project can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Decorating Project can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Decorating Project 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, Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Decorating Project can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Decorating Project operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Decorating Project to increase its market reach. Decorating Project 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.
Threats Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money are -
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
– Decorating Project 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Decorating Project 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Decorating Project 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Decorating Project 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money .
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. Decorating Project can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Decorating Project with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Decorating Project business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Decorating Project
– 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 Decorating Project.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Decorating Project is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Decorating Project 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Decorating Project has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Decorating Project 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.
Environmental challenges
– Decorating Project 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. Decorating Project can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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 Living.Dupont.ca: Virtual Business, Real Money 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 Decorating Project needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
