Case Study Description of Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia
Hector Beverages reinvented the ethnic drinks category in the Indian market with its beverage brand Paper Boat. The brand had been successful since its launch in 2013, posting triple-digit growth in 2015. By the end of December 2015, Hector Beverages' future seemed to be heavily dependent upon Paper Boat. With Paper Boat constituting 90 per cent of the company's total sales, 2016 would be a critical year for Hector Beverages. Should the company add more variety to its line of products, or should it focus on a few best-selling variants? Would the Paper Boat brand remain strong despite the launch of a similar product by a major competitor? Could Hector Beverages maintain its hold on the Indian ethnic drinks market? Saju B. is affiliated with VIT University. Hari Krishnan K. is affiliated with VIT University. Joseph Jeya Anand S. is affiliated with VIT University.
Authors :: Saju B, Harikrishnan K, Joseph Jeya Anand S
Swot Analysis of "Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia" written by Saju B, Harikrishnan K, Joseph Jeya Anand S includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Boat Hector facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Product development and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Boat Hector, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Boat Hector 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Boat Hector
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 Boat Hector
Strengths Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Boat Hector in Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Boat Hector 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Boat Hector to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Boat Hector to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Boat Hector is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Boat Hector 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Boat Hector 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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
– Boat Hector has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Boat Hector 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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
– Boat Hector 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 Boat Hector in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Boat Hector 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 Saju B, Harikrishnan K, Joseph Jeya Anand S 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Boat Hector is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Boat Hector is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Boat Hector 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia HBR case study mentions - Boat Hector 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Boat Hector 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Boat Hector 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 - Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Boat Hector products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Boat Hector needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia, it seems that the employees of Boat Hector 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Boat Hector 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Boat Hector, firm in the HBR case study Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Boat Hector is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Saju B, Harikrishnan K, Joseph Jeya Anand S suggests that, Boat Hector 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Boat Hector is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia | 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Boat Hector has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Boat Hector to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia case study. Boat Hector can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Boat Hector 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Boat Hector 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Boat Hector can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Boat Hector is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Boat Hector can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Boat Hector operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Boat Hector 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Boat Hector can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Boat Hector 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Boat Hector to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Boat Hector 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Boat Hector 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 Boat Hector to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Boat Hector 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Boat Hector 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.
Threats Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Boat Hector 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.
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 Boat Hector.
Regulatory challenges
– Boat Hector 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.
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.
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 Boat Hector in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Boat Hector is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Boat Hector 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Boat Hector 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.
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 Boat Hector business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Boat Hector with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Boat Hector has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Boat Hector 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Boat Hector 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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 Paper Boat Beverage: Branding Delightful Nostalgia 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 Boat Hector needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.