Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version
When students have the English-language PDF of this Brief Case in a coursepack, they will also have the option to purchase an audio version.In January of 2005, Manchester Products Inc., a longtime leader in office furniture that only recently entered into the home furniture market, acquired Paul Logan's Furniture Division (PLFD). The acquisition of PLFD made Manchester an instant market leader in household furniture. A key factor in the value of PLFD has been the name of the company founder -- arguably the premiere name in high-end fashion and accessories, and a true lifestyle brand. However, Manchester has acquired rights to use the Paul Logan brand name for only three years. Jason Adams, VP of Marketing for Manchester, is responsible for designing a plan to transition the brand from the Paul Logan name to Manchester. He must develop the optimal timing and sequencing of the brand transition, assess the implications, and establish the appropriate mix of advertising and promotion programs to support the transition.
Swot Analysis of "Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version" written by John A. Quelch, Heather Beckham includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Manchester Plfd facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Mergers & acquisitions and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Manchester Plfd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Manchester Plfd 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Manchester Plfd
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 Manchester Plfd
Strengths Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Manchester Plfd in Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Manchester Plfd 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Manchester Plfd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Manchester Plfd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Manchester Plfd 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Manchester Plfd 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Manchester Plfd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Manchester Plfd 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Manchester Plfd is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Manchester Plfd is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Manchester Plfd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Manchester Plfd is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by John A. Quelch, Heather Beckham can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Manchester Plfd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Manchester Plfd 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
– Manchester Plfd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Manchester Plfd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version, it seems that the employees of Manchester Plfd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version, in the dynamic environment Manchester Plfd has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Manchester Plfd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Manchester Plfd 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. Manchester Plfd 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Manchester Plfd 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Manchester Plfd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Manchester Plfd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John A. Quelch, Heather Beckham suggests that, Manchester Plfd 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Manchester Plfd 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Manchester Plfd 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Manchester Plfd, firm in the HBR case study Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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 Manchester Plfd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version, is just above the industry average. Manchester Plfd 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.
Opportunities Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version | 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Manchester Plfd to increase its market reach. Manchester Plfd 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Manchester Plfd 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Manchester Plfd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Manchester Plfd 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 Manchester Plfd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Manchester Plfd 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 Manchester Plfd 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.
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 Manchester Plfd in the consumer business. Now Manchester Plfd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Manchester Plfd 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Manchester Plfd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Manchester Plfd 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.
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. Manchester Plfd 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. Manchester Plfd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Manchester Plfd 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Manchester Plfd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Manchester Plfd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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.
Threats Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Manchester Plfd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Manchester Plfd 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.
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 Manchester Plfd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Manchester Plfd 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 wage structure of Manchester Plfd
– 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 Manchester Plfd.
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 Manchester Plfd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Manchester Plfd is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Manchester Plfd 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. Manchester Plfd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
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.
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 Manchester Plfd in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Manchester Plfd 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Manchester Plfd 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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 Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge, Spanish Version 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 Manchester Plfd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
