Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful
Women of Worth (WOW) is an organization that seeks to empower women through training and workshops. The organization has also fought against discrimination based on the color of a person's skin through its "Dark is Beautiful" campaign-endorsed by well-known actor-director Nandita Das. However, despite the recent guidelines on advertising of skin-lightening products, many Indians still aspire to have fair skin. The sale of fairness creams continues to contribute to over 50% of the facial care market. Given this, what should WOW do to fight skin-color based discrimination?
Swot Analysis of "Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful" written by Rohit Deshpande, Saloni Chaturvedi includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Skin Wow facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social responsibility and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Skin Wow, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Skin Wow 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Skin Wow
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 Skin Wow
Strengths Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Skin Wow in Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Skin Wow is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Skin Wow has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Skin Wow 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Skin Wow digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Skin Wow 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
– Skin Wow 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 Rohit Deshpande, Saloni Chaturvedi 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Skin Wow to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Skin Wow to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Skin Wow 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.
Training and development
– Skin Wow has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Skin Wow 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Skin Wow in the sector have low bargaining power. Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Skin Wow to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Skin Wow 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 Skin Wow is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Skin Wow 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 Skin Wow in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Skin Wow, firm in the HBR case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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, Skin Wow is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Skin Wow has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Skin Wow is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Skin Wow 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful, in the dynamic environment Skin Wow has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Skin Wow has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful, it seems that the employees of Skin Wow 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Rohit Deshpande, Saloni Chaturvedi suggests that, Skin Wow 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Skin Wow products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Skin Wow needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Skin Wow 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful, 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.
Opportunities Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful | 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Skin Wow 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.
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. Skin Wow 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. Skin Wow 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Skin Wow can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Skin Wow 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Skin Wow 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Skin Wow can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Skin Wow operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Skin Wow 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Skin Wow 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Skin Wow 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Skin Wow to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Skin Wow 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, Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Skin Wow has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Skin Wow to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful case study. Skin Wow can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Skin Wow can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Skin Wow 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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. Skin Wow needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Skin Wow will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
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 Skin Wow in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Skin Wow with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Skin Wow.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful, Skin Wow 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 .
Increasing wage structure of Skin Wow
– 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 Skin Wow.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Skin Wow 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Skin Wow 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
– Skin Wow has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Skin Wow 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Skin Wow 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Skin Wow is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Skin Wow 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Fair & Lovely vs. Dark is Beautiful 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 Skin Wow needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.