Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features
In 2016, the founder and sole owner of Mobiado, a Canadian line of luxury mobile phones, was evaluating his company's marketing strategy. Proud of what he had achieved and passionate about his role as designer of one of the most unique and distinctive product lines in the category, he reflected on how he might need to adjust his company's strategies to fit current trends and to remain competitive. Could the Mobiado product line continue to succeed by offering exclusive precision-engineered mobile instruments without the latest smartphone features? Would the new breed of luxury consumers continue to value form over function? Margaret Osborne is affiliated with Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology. Ken Kwong-Kay Wong is affiliated with University of Toronto.
Swot Analysis of "Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features" written by Margaret Osborne, Ken Kwong-Kay Wong includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mobiado Luxury facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Mobile and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mobiado Luxury, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mobiado Luxury 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mobiado Luxury
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 Mobiado Luxury
Strengths Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mobiado Luxury in Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mobiado Luxury 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mobiado Luxury 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Mobiado Luxury is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mobiado Luxury digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mobiado Luxury 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.
Analytics focus
– Mobiado Luxury 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 Margaret Osborne, Ken Kwong-Kay Wong can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mobiado Luxury has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mobiado Luxury 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.
Training and development
– Mobiado Luxury has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mobiado Luxury is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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.
Organizational Resilience of Mobiado Luxury
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Mobiado Luxury does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mobiado Luxury to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mobiado Luxury to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Mobiado Luxury is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mobiado Luxury 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features - 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mobiado Luxury is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mobiado Luxury 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features, it seems that the employees of Mobiado Luxury 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mobiado Luxury products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mobiado Luxury needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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 Mobiado Luxury has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Mobiado Luxury, firm in the HBR case study Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mobiado Luxury 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mobiado Luxury is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Mobiado Luxury needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mobiado Luxury to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Margaret Osborne, Ken Kwong-Kay Wong suggests that, Mobiado Luxury 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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 Mobiado Luxury 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features | 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features are -
Manufacturing automation
– Mobiado Luxury 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mobiado Luxury 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
– Mobiado Luxury 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.
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 Mobiado Luxury 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, Mobiado Luxury is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Mobiado Luxury can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mobiado Luxury 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mobiado Luxury 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
– Mobiado Luxury 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mobiado Luxury can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mobiado Luxury has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Mobiado Luxury to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features case study. Mobiado Luxury can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mobiado Luxury 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mobiado Luxury to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Mobiado Luxury 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.
Threats Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Mobiado Luxury 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 Mobiado Luxury business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Mobiado Luxury needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mobiado Luxury 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mobiado Luxury is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mobiado Luxury 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mobiado Luxury has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mobiado Luxury 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features, Mobiado Luxury 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 .
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
– Mobiado Luxury 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.
Increasing wage structure of Mobiado Luxury
– 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 Mobiado Luxury.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mobiado Luxury 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.
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. Mobiado Luxury can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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 Mobiado Luxury Mobile Instruments: Form over Features 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 Mobiado Luxury needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.