Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint
Mother Dairy was created as a subsidiary of India's National Dairy Development Board in 1974, with a mandate to leverage the capacities of small, village-based milk producers. After a very successful run as the major supplier of Delhi's milk and dairy products, Mother Dairy is looking at an expanded national footprint as an essential strategy for growth. Milk is a commoditized product, so how can Mother Dairy create differentiation to move the consumer mindset from "mundane milk" to "magical Mother Dairy"? Is it possible to nudge out the existing state players? What would be the inventory and supply-chain challenges of a national launch, especially when the product has a very short shelf life?
Authors :: Neena Sondhi, Supriya M. Kalla, Umashankar Venkatesh
Swot Analysis of "Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint" written by Neena Sondhi, Supriya M. Kalla, Umashankar Venkatesh includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dairy Mother facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dairy Mother, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dairy Mother 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dairy Mother
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 Dairy Mother
Strengths Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dairy Mother in Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dairy Mother in the sector have low bargaining power. Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dairy Mother to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Dairy Mother has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dairy Mother is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dairy Mother to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dairy Mother to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dairy Mother 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dairy Mother 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Dairy Mother 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 Dairy Mother in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Dairy Mother is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dairy Mother 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dairy Mother is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dairy Mother in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dairy Mother has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dairy Mother 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.
Weaknesses Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Dairy Mother 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dairy Mother is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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 Dairy Mother has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dairy Mother is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint, is just above the industry average. Dairy Mother 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dairy Mother products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dairy Mother needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dairy Mother 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint, in the dynamic environment Dairy Mother has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dairy Mother has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dairy Mother 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 - Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Neena Sondhi, Supriya M. Kalla, Umashankar Venkatesh suggests that, Dairy Mother 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 Dairy Mother supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dairy Mother vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint | 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint are -
Buying journey improvements
– Dairy Mother can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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. Dairy Mother 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. Dairy Mother 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 Dairy Mother has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Dairy Mother to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint case study. Dairy Mother can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dairy Mother can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Dairy Mother 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dairy Mother 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dairy Mother to increase its market reach. Dairy Mother 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dairy Mother 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 Dairy Mother to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Dairy Mother 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Dairy Mother 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dairy Mother 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 Dairy Mother 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dairy Mother 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.
Threats Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint are -
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 Dairy Mother business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Dairy Mother 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. Dairy Mother can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Dairy Mother with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dairy Mother has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dairy Mother 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.
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. Dairy Mother needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Dairy Mother.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dairy Mother 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. Dairy Mother can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Dairy Mother in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Dairy Mother 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Dairy Mother
– 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 Dairy Mother.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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 Mother Dairy: Creating a National Footprint 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 Dairy Mother needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
