Case Study Description of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada
An immigrant entrepreneur created Hi-Bridge Consulting Corporation, a company that imported and distributed alcoholic products in Canada, among other activities. In 2009, the entrepreneur brought Yanjing beer to Canada from China, even though the Chinese brewery did not have an articulated international expansion strategy in Canada at the time. Despite numerous challenges in the Canadian beer market, the entrepreneur made significant headway. However, six years after the product's introduction, she understood that many Canadian consumers were still not aware of Yanjing beer and that she needed to find an effective way to increase its market share. Kimberley Howard and William Wei are affiliated with Grant MacEwan College.
Authors :: Kimberley Howard, William Wei, Kaijin Nie
Swot Analysis of "Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada" written by Kimberley Howard, William Wei, Kaijin Nie includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Yanjing Beer facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Yanjing Beer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Yanjing Beer
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 Yanjing Beer
Strengths Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Yanjing Beer in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Yanjing Beer is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Yanjing Beer is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Yanjing Beer is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Yanjing Beer in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Yanjing Beer 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.
Training and development
– Yanjing Beer has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Yanjing Beer 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 Kimberley Howard, William Wei, Kaijin Nie 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Yanjing Beer in the sector have low bargaining power. Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Yanjing Beer to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Yanjing Beer has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Yanjing Beer to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Yanjing Beer 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 Yanjing Beer in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Yanjing Beer is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Yanjing Beer needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Yanjing Beer to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Yanjing Beer 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, Yanjing Beer needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Need for greater diversity
– Yanjing Beer 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Yanjing Beer 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 - Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Yanjing Beer has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Yanjing Beer, firm in the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Yanjing Beer products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Yanjing Beer needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, it seems that the employees of Yanjing Beer 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Yanjing Beer 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. Yanjing Beer 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.
Opportunities Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada | 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Yanjing Beer to increase its market reach. Yanjing Beer 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Yanjing Beer can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Yanjing Beer 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. Yanjing Beer 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Yanjing Beer 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 Yanjing Beer to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Yanjing Beer can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Yanjing Beer 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, Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Yanjing Beer to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Yanjing Beer can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Yanjing Beer 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Yanjing Beer 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Yanjing Beer 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Yanjing Beer 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Yanjing Beer can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Threats Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are -
Increasing wage structure of Yanjing Beer
– 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 Yanjing Beer.
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 Yanjing Beer 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 Yanjing Beer 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.
Environmental challenges
– Yanjing Beer 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. Yanjing Beer 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 Yanjing Beer 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
– Yanjing Beer 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.
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. Yanjing Beer 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, Yanjing Beer 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 .
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 Yanjing Beer business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Yanjing Beer 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.
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 Yanjing Beer.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Yanjing Beer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
