Stories That Deliver Business Insights SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Stories That Deliver Business Insights
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Ethnography has often been portrayed as a "fly on the wall"technique, with anthropologists lurking in people's homes to observe consumers'unadulterated lives. The authors argue that this description does not do justice to the way ethnography actually works in the corporate world or to ethnography's increasingly important role in formulating business strategy. The authors'research across a variety of companies suggests that ethnography -artful in situ investigation into what customers do and feel and how they talk about what they do and feel -is a powerful tool to use to gain insights into your market. To arrive at a more in-depth understanding of how corporations use ethnography to their advantage, the authors conducted interviews with executives in various industries worldwide, including Ford and Wells Fargo. Where data analytics and surveys provide flattened snapshots, ethnography contributes an empathic understanding of how consumers live, work and play through gritty and detailed descriptions. Whether conveyed in video format, presentations or reports, these stories describe how people confront and surmount the hurdles they encounter in meeting their responsibilities and fulfilling their hopes in our globalized consumer culture. By delving into the richness of people's life stories, ethnographic research can pivot companies away from less meaningful segmentation parameters, such as demographics or purchase history, and toward those that drive behavior, such as purpose and intent. Quantitative techniques such as factor analysis can subsequently be applied to locate and size market segments. Consistent with the idea that ethnography helps organizations deal more effectively with market complexities, the executives the authors interviewed often talked about ethnography as having helped them sort out puzzling data. While these discussions call into dispute the perception that ethnography is merely an exploratory technique, they also underline the point that ethnographic stories often provide insight into consumer behavior that is hard to come by in other ways.
Authors :: Julien Cayla, Robin Beers, Eric Arnould
Swot Analysis of "Stories That Deliver Business Insights" written by Julien Cayla, Robin Beers, Eric Arnould includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ethnography Stories facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Stories That Deliver Business Insights case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Stories That Deliver Business Insights casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, 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 transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Stories That Deliver Business Insights
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Stories That Deliver Business Insights case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ethnography Stories, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ethnography Stories 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Stories That Deliver Business Insights case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ethnography Stories
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 Ethnography Stories
Strengths Stories That Deliver Business Insights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ethnography Stories in Stories That Deliver Business Insights Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ethnography Stories 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.
Analytics focus
– Ethnography Stories 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 Julien Cayla, Robin Beers, Eric Arnould 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Stories That Deliver Business Insights firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ethnography Stories to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ethnography Stories to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Ethnography Stories is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ethnography Stories has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ethnography Stories 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
– Ethnography Stories has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ethnography Stories to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Ethnography Stories has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ethnography Stories is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Stories That Deliver Business Insights Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ethnography Stories 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ethnography Stories in the sector have low bargaining power. Stories That Deliver Business Insights has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ethnography Stories to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Ethnography Stories 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 Ethnography Stories is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Stories That Deliver Business Insights Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Stories That Deliver Business Insights | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Stories That Deliver Business Insights are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ethnography Stories has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ethnography Stories 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ethnography Stories 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. Ethnography Stories 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Julien Cayla, Robin Beers, Eric Arnould suggests that, Ethnography Stories 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Stories That Deliver Business Insights, in the dynamic environment Ethnography Stories has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ethnography Stories has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Stories That Deliver Business Insights, is just above the industry average. Ethnography Stories 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
– Ethnography Stories 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Ethnography Stories 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Stories That Deliver Business Insights, 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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 Ethnography Stories 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Stories That Deliver Business Insights, it seems that the employees of Ethnography Stories 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.
Opportunities Stories That Deliver Business Insights | 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ethnography Stories 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ethnography Stories to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Ethnography Stories can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ethnography Stories is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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.
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. Ethnography Stories can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ethnography Stories 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ethnography Stories 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ethnography Stories 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.
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. Ethnography Stories 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. Ethnography Stories 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.
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 Ethnography Stories in the consumer business. Now Ethnography Stories can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ethnography Stories 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ethnography Stories can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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.
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 Ethnography Stories 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ethnography Stories can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Threats Stories That Deliver Business Insights External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Stories That Deliver Business Insights are -
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 Ethnography Stories.
Environmental challenges
– Ethnography Stories 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. Ethnography Stories can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ethnography Stories 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ethnography Stories 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.
Increasing wage structure of Ethnography Stories
– 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 Ethnography Stories.
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 Ethnography Stories in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ethnography Stories has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ethnography Stories 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ethnography Stories with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ethnography Stories 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.
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. Ethnography Stories needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ethnography Stories 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ethnography Stories 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights .
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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 Stories That Deliver Business Insights 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 Ethnography Stories needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.