FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market
Powered by 27 million births a year and a growing middle to upper class, India's baby care e-tailing sector is expected to grow to US $500 million by 2017. FirstCry, established in December 2010 with seed capital of Rs. 25 million (about US $548,000), has gradually emerged as Asia's largest online shopping portal for products for children and expectant mothers with an inventory of more than 90,000 items from over 1,200 top international and Indian brands. Aiming to create a seamless experience focused on constant innovation, improvement, and added value, FirstCry faces challenges related to logistics, payment gateways, and intense competition to gain new customers in this lucrative market. In the tumultuous online baby care products market, which has seen several major businesses close their doors or be acquired by others, how will FirstCry maintain its lead and grow its business in the next few years?
Swot Analysis of "FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market" written by Nirankush Dutta, Anil K. Bhat includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Firstcry Baby facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Firstcry Baby, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Firstcry Baby
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 Firstcry Baby
Strengths FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Firstcry Baby in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Firstcry Baby has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Firstcry Baby to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Firstcry Baby 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 Firstcry Baby in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Firstcry Baby is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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
– Firstcry Baby has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Firstcry Baby 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Firstcry Baby 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.
Analytics focus
– Firstcry Baby 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 Nirankush Dutta, Anil K. Bhat 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Firstcry Baby is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 Firstcry Baby 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Firstcry Baby in the sector have low bargaining power. FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Firstcry Baby to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Firstcry Baby to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Firstcry Baby to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Firstcry Baby 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 Firstcry Baby is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market are -
Need for greater diversity
– Firstcry Baby 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Firstcry Baby is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Firstcry Baby has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, in the dynamic environment Firstcry Baby has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Firstcry Baby has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market HBR case study mentions - Firstcry Baby takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 Firstcry Baby has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Firstcry Baby 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, it seems that the employees of Firstcry Baby 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Firstcry Baby, firm in the HBR case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Nirankush Dutta, Anil K. Bhat suggests that, Firstcry Baby 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Firstcry Baby 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 - FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market | 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Firstcry Baby 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.
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 Firstcry Baby 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Firstcry Baby can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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.
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. Firstcry Baby 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. Firstcry Baby 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Firstcry Baby has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Firstcry Baby to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market case study. Firstcry Baby can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Firstcry Baby 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Firstcry Baby to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Firstcry Baby 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 Firstcry Baby to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Firstcry Baby 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.
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. Firstcry Baby can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Firstcry Baby 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Firstcry Baby 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 Firstcry Baby 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.
Threats FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Firstcry Baby 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.
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 Firstcry Baby business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Firstcry Baby is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, Firstcry Baby 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 .
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. Firstcry Baby 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.
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 Firstcry Baby.
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.
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. Firstcry Baby needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Firstcry Baby in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Firstcry Baby 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Firstcry Baby has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Firstcry Baby 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.
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. Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 Firstcry Baby needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
