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 - – increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, 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 -
Analytics focus
– Firstcry Baby 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 Nirankush Dutta, Anil K. Bhat 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Firstcry Baby is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Firstcry Baby is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
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.
Training and development
– Firstcry Baby has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Firstcry Baby to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Firstcry Baby to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
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 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Firstcry Baby 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, it seems that the employees of Firstcry Baby don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Firstcry Baby is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Firstcry Baby is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Firstcry Baby needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Firstcry Baby to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market HBR case study mentions - Firstcry Baby takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
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.
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 -
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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Firstcry Baby 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Firstcry Baby can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Firstcry Baby 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 Firstcry Baby to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
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 Firstcry Baby in the consumer business. Now Firstcry Baby can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Firstcry Baby has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Firstcry Baby 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.
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 Firstcry Baby.
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. Firstcry Baby can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study FirstCry.com: Fighting to Lead the Giant Online Baby Care Products Market, Firstcry Baby 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 .
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Firstcry Baby 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. 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.
