S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth
Paris-based S.T.Dupont is engaged in the manufacture, marketing and sale of luxury goods for men and women, including lighters, pens, jewelry, leather goods, eyewear, watches, belts, fragrances and casual and formal attire. Founded in 1872 by an entrepreneurial French photographer and carriage-maker, the company began making luxury leather luggage for wealthy aristocrats. It was owned and managed by the same family until the 1970s, when it was sold to the American multinational Gillette. A decade later, it was sold to Hong Kong conglomerate Dickson Concepts. Having largely lost its brand identity, S.T.Dupont languished until 2006, when a new management team based in Paris successfully turned the company around with a unique branding and marketing strategy. Please visit the dedicated case website http://cases.insead.edu/stdupont to access supplementary material.
Authors :: Joerg Niessing, David Dubois, Brian Henry
Swot Analysis of "S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth" written by Joerg Niessing, David Dubois, Brian Henry includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that S.t.dupont Luxury facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the S.t.dupont Luxury, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which S.t.dupont 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of S.t.dupont 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 S.t.dupont Luxury
Strengths S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of S.t.dupont Luxury in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– S.t.dupont Luxury has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of S.t.dupont Luxury in the sector have low bargaining power. S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps S.t.dupont Luxury to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.t.dupont 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
– S.t.dupont 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.
Organizational Resilience of S.t.dupont Luxury
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that S.t.dupont Luxury does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– S.t.dupont Luxury is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– S.t.dupont Luxury has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. S.t.dupont 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– S.t.dupont Luxury is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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.
Learning organization
- S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.t.dupont Luxury is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.t.dupont Luxury in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at S.t.dupont 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, S.t.dupont Luxury is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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, Joerg Niessing, David Dubois, Brian Henry suggests that, S.t.dupont 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, S.t.dupont Luxury has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, S.t.dupont Luxury has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. S.t.dupont Luxury even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Need for greater diversity
– S.t.dupont Luxury has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth HBR case study mentions - S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, it seems that the employees of S.t.dupont 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of S.t.dupont Luxury, firm in the HBR case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, S.t.dupont 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.
Opportunities S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth | 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects S.t.dupont Luxury can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– S.t.dupont 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– S.t.dupont 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help S.t.dupont Luxury to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– S.t.dupont 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for S.t.dupont Luxury in the consumer business. Now S.t.dupont Luxury can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. S.t.dupont Luxury can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 S.t.dupont 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, S.t.dupont Luxury 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, S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, S.t.dupont Luxury is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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
– S.t.dupont Luxury can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, S.t.dupont 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at S.t.dupont 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.
Threats S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth are -
Environmental challenges
– S.t.dupont Luxury needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. S.t.dupont Luxury can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– S.t.dupont 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.
Regulatory challenges
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents S.t.dupont Luxury with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for S.t.dupont 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.
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 S.t.dupont Luxury.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that S.t.dupont Luxury is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. S.t.dupont Luxury can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, S.t.dupont 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, S.t.dupont 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 .
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 S.t.dupont Luxury in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Increasing wage structure of S.t.dupont 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 S.t.dupont Luxury.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.t.dupont Luxury needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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