Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India
Sewells Group, India, a leading provider of retail solutions to auto original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their dealers in the Indian market, developed an innovative engagement model for its clients. The model offered solutions based on the performance management of franchised automotive dealers using measurement, analysis, education and development. The first client for whom Sewells Group developed the dealer sales and service system was a late entrant into the Indian market and had about 100 dealerships across the country. It wanted to ensure that the brand promise communicated through its innovative and expensive marketing campaigns was supported at its dealerships when customers arrived to explore the cars. The client sought a comprehensive model of dealer management that did not suffer from the limitations of traditional models that were heavily focused on training and process compliance. In response, Sewells Group developed a novel 5-step dealer management model that applied principles of retail process efficacy to deliver three key outcomes: customer experience, productivity and profitability across all the departments of a dealership. As Jayesh Jagasia, CEO at Sewells Group, India, reviewed the impressive quarterly results of the model's implementation, he mulled over questions related to the sustainability, replicability and extendibility of this initial model to other firms in the automotive sector. What were the learnings from the first implementation of the model? Was it possible to effectively overcome the challenges that they had faced? Would the model work across the industry? Under what circumstances and for what brands or dealerships would the model work? What sort of consulting resources would the company need? Could some parts of the solution be automated? How would the IT departments of auto manufacturers respond to the automation of solutions?
Swot Analysis of "Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India" written by Piyush Kumar, Geetika Shah includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sewells Dealerships facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Branding, Sales, Supply chain and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sewells Dealerships, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sewells Dealerships
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 Sewells Dealerships
Strengths Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sewells Dealerships in Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sewells Dealerships in the sector have low bargaining power. Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sewells Dealerships to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Dealerships is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Sewells Dealerships has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sewells Dealerships to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Sewells Dealerships is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sewells Dealerships to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sewells Dealerships to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sewells Dealerships 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sewells Dealerships 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sewells Dealerships digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sewells Dealerships 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sewells Dealerships
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Sewells Dealerships does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sewells Dealerships has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India, is just above the industry average. Sewells Dealerships 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sewells Dealerships 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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 Sewells Dealerships 's lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sewells Dealerships is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Sewells Dealerships 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Piyush Kumar, Geetika Shah suggests that, Sewells Dealerships 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sewells Dealerships, firm in the HBR case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sewells Dealerships is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Sewells Dealerships needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sewells Dealerships to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India, it seems that the employees of Sewells Dealerships 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, Sewells Dealerships is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India | 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India are -
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 Sewells Dealerships 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
– Sewells Dealerships 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.
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 Sewells Dealerships in the consumer business. Now Sewells Dealerships can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Dealerships to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Sewells Dealerships can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sewells Dealerships to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sewells Dealerships 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sewells Dealerships 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.
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. Sewells Dealerships 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. Sewells Dealerships 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sewells Dealerships 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sewells Dealerships to increase its market reach. Sewells Dealerships will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sewells Dealerships 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sewells Dealerships can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sewells Dealerships 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sewells Dealerships 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India .
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 Sewells Dealerships in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sewells Dealerships 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. Sewells Dealerships can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Sewells Dealerships 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sewells Dealerships 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
– Sewells Dealerships 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.
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. Sewells Dealerships 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 Sewells Dealerships.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sewells Dealerships 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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 Sewells Group: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India 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 Sewells Dealerships needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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