Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy
Describes the situation confronting Giovanni Buton, an Italian distiller and beverage distributor, in 1989. The market for distilled spirits was declining and the spirits industry was consolidating via mergers and acquisitions on a worldwide basis. "Global brands" such as Dewar's Scotch were gaining share at the expense of local products. The process of market integration in the EC was scheduled to be completed by the end of 1992. In the face of these changes in the marketplace, what should Buton's strategy be for improving its position in Europe?
Swot Analysis of "Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy" written by Robert D. Buzzell, Geoffrey W. Smith includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Buton Giovanni facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Buton Giovanni, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Buton Giovanni 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Buton Giovanni
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 Buton Giovanni
Strengths Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Buton Giovanni in Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Buton Giovanni in the sector have low bargaining power. Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Buton Giovanni to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Buton Giovanni 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Buton Giovanni 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Buton Giovanni 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 Buton Giovanni in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Buton Giovanni 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 Buton Giovanni is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Buton Giovanni has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Buton Giovanni 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 brand equity
– Buton Giovanni has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Buton Giovanni to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Buton Giovanni 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Buton Giovanni digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Buton Giovanni 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Buton Giovanni 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Buton Giovanni is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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.
Weaknesses Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy, is just above the industry average. Buton Giovanni 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Buton Giovanni 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy HBR case study mentions - Buton Giovanni 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 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 Buton Giovanni supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Buton Giovanni vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy, in the dynamic environment Buton Giovanni has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Buton Giovanni 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy, it seems that the employees of Buton Giovanni 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Buton Giovanni is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Buton Giovanni 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Buton Giovanni has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Buton Giovanni 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. Buton Giovanni 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Buton Giovanni 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.
Opportunities Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy | 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Buton Giovanni can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Buton Giovanni operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
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. Buton Giovanni can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Buton Giovanni 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.
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 Buton Giovanni 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Buton Giovanni 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Buton Giovanni has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Buton Giovanni to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy case study. Buton Giovanni can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Buton Giovanni to increase its market reach. Buton Giovanni 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Buton Giovanni 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Buton Giovanni 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, Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Buton Giovanni 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. Buton Giovanni 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Buton Giovanni 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Buton Giovanni can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Buton Giovanni 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy are -
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. Buton Giovanni 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.
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. Buton Giovanni can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Buton Giovanni demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Buton Giovanni 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy .
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 Buton Giovanni.
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. Buton Giovanni needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Buton Giovanni 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy, Buton Giovanni 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Buton Giovanni 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. Buton Giovanni can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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 Buton Giovanni business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Buton Giovanni with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Buton Giovanni 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Giovanni Buton: International Marketing Strategy 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 Buton Giovanni needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
