Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer
By May 2015, Zivame, an Indian online lingerie retailer, had established itself as a market leader in this category by providing traditionally conservative Indian women a reliable solution to help them confidently purchase their most intimate wear while avoiding any confrontation with sales executives, mostly men, of brick-and-mortar stores. It helped its customers understand their lingerie needs, browse through styles, order their right size and get their orders delivered quickly at their doorstep without any embarrassment. Reliable customer care, availability of various national and international brands and a wide range of sizes and styles had made the brand popular in its target market, averaging 1,200 daily orders, almost a 200 per cent jump from the previous year. Can Zivame reach its goal of becoming a billion dollar enterprise in the next five to seven years or will confining itself to the women's lingerie segment become a hurdle to future growth?
Swot Analysis of "Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer" written by Nirankush Dutta, Anil K. Bhat includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lingerie Zivame facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lingerie Zivame, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lingerie Zivame 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lingerie Zivame
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 Lingerie Zivame
Strengths Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lingerie Zivame in Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Lingerie Zivame is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lingerie Zivame in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Lingerie Zivame 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Lingerie Zivame is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lingerie Zivame is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Lingerie Zivame
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lingerie Zivame does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Lingerie Zivame 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Lingerie Zivame is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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
– Lingerie Zivame has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lingerie Zivame 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
– Lingerie Zivame has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lingerie Zivame digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lingerie Zivame 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.
Weaknesses Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer are -
Need for greater diversity
– Lingerie Zivame 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer, 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lingerie Zivame 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lingerie Zivame 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer, is just above the industry average. Lingerie Zivame needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Nirankush Dutta, Anil K. Bhat suggests that, Lingerie Zivame 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 dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Lingerie Zivame supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Lingerie Zivame vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lingerie Zivame 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 - Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lingerie Zivame 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer HBR case study mentions - Lingerie Zivame 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Lingerie Zivame 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.
Opportunities Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer | 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lingerie Zivame 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 Lingerie Zivame to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lingerie Zivame to increase its market reach. Lingerie Zivame will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lingerie Zivame 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lingerie Zivame 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, Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Lingerie Zivame 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, Lingerie Zivame 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Lingerie Zivame 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lingerie Zivame is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Lingerie Zivame 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.
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. Lingerie Zivame can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lingerie Zivame can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Lingerie Zivame 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lingerie Zivame 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
– Lingerie Zivame 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lingerie Zivame 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Lingerie Zivame 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 Lingerie Zivame.
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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lingerie Zivame 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lingerie Zivame 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.
Increasing wage structure of Lingerie Zivame
– 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 Lingerie Zivame.
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 Lingerie Zivame business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Lingerie Zivame in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline 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. Lingerie Zivame needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Lingerie Zivame can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lingerie Zivame has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lingerie Zivame 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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 Zivame: Branding Options for an Online Lingerie Retailer 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 Lingerie Zivame needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.