FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market
Powered by 27 million births a year and a growing middle to upper class, India's baby care e-tailing sector is expected to grow to US $500 million by 2017. FirstCry, established in December 2010 with seed capital of Rs. 25 million (about US $548,000), has gradually emerged as Asia's largest online shopping portal for products for children and expectant mothers with an inventory of more than 90,000 items from over 1,200 top international and Indian brands. Aiming to create a seamless experience focused on constant innovation, improvement, and added value, FirstCry faces challenges related to logistics, payment gateways, and intense competition to gain new customers in this lucrative market. In the tumultuous online baby care products market, which has seen several major businesses close their doors or be acquired by others, how will FirstCry maintain its lead and grow its business in the next few years?
Swot Analysis of "FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market" written by Nirankush Dutta, Anil K. Bhat includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Firstcry Baby facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Firstcry Baby, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Firstcry Baby
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 Firstcry Baby
Strengths FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Firstcry Baby in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Firstcry Baby has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Firstcry Baby to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Firstcry Baby has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Firstcry Baby 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.
Learning organization
- Firstcry Baby 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 Firstcry Baby is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Firstcry Baby digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Firstcry Baby 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
– Firstcry Baby is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Firstcry Baby in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Firstcry Baby in the sector have low bargaining power. FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Firstcry Baby to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Firstcry Baby 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market - 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 Firstcry Baby 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Firstcry Baby 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 Firstcry Baby in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Firstcry Baby supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Firstcry Baby vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Firstcry Baby 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Firstcry Baby 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Firstcry Baby 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 Firstcry Baby has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, is just above the industry average. Firstcry Baby needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Lack of clear differentiation of Firstcry Baby products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Firstcry Baby needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Firstcry Baby 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 - FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Firstcry Baby, firm in the HBR case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, in the dynamic environment Firstcry Baby has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Firstcry Baby has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Firstcry Baby has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market | 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market are -
Loyalty marketing
– Firstcry Baby 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Firstcry Baby 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Firstcry Baby 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Firstcry Baby 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.
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 Firstcry Baby 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
– Firstcry Baby 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Firstcry Baby 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.
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. Firstcry Baby can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Firstcry Baby to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Firstcry Baby 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.
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. Firstcry Baby 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. Firstcry Baby 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Firstcry Baby to increase its market reach. Firstcry Baby 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Firstcry Baby is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Firstcry Baby business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Firstcry Baby
– 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 Firstcry Baby.
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. Firstcry Baby 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Firstcry Baby 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Firstcry Baby is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Firstcry Baby 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Firstcry Baby 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Firstcry Baby 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Firstcry Baby 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. Firstcry Baby 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.
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 Firstcry Baby in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Firstcry Baby needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 Firstcry Baby needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.