Case Study Description of ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share
This case focuses on how Johan Pienaar, Valent Biosciences Corporation (VBC) Global Business Manager for Plant Growth Regulators, should manage growth of one of the company's most successful products - ReTain. When applied to apples, ReTain reduces fruit drop, provides more consistent premium fruit, and aids in harvest and storage management. Large, sophisticated orchards realized a five to twenty-fold return on their use of ReTain, and as a result ReTain had a market share of roughly 65% of the Total Available Market in the U.S. apple industry. Further, ReTain could be applied to other fruit crops to aid growers. Johan's challenge was how to prioritize the various opportunities to grow revenues from the ReTain technology based on its application to other fruit where ReTain was known to be effective (e.g., peaches, pineapples, almonds) and in international markets (e.g., China, Europe). At the same time, he sought to defend ReTain from several threats (e.g., a much cheaper legacy technology, disagreements about its classification as organic) to its strong market position in the U.S. apple industry. Johan must also decide whether to invest some of these limited resources into R&D in an effort to establish whether ReTain could be effective on a heretofore untested crop.
Swot Analysis of "ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share" written by Michael McCollough, John J. Lawrence includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Retain Fruit facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Retain Fruit, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Retain Fruit 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Retain Fruit
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 Retain Fruit
Strengths ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Retain Fruit in ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Retain Fruit has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Retain Fruit to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Retain Fruit digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Retain Fruit 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 lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Retain Fruit 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 Retain Fruit in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Retain Fruit 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Retain Fruit to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Retain Fruit to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Retain Fruit has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Retain Fruit 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Retain Fruit is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Retain Fruit 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Retain Fruit is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Retain Fruit in the sector have low bargaining power. ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Retain Fruit to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Retain Fruit products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Retain Fruit needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share, in the dynamic environment Retain Fruit has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Retain Fruit 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share, is just above the industry average. Retain Fruit 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Retain Fruit is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Retain Fruit 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Retain Fruit 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share HBR case study mentions - Retain Fruit 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Retain Fruit 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. Retain Fruit 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Retain Fruit 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 - ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Retain Fruit 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.
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 Retain Fruit supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Retain Fruit vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share | 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share are -
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. Retain Fruit can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Retain Fruit 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Retain Fruit is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Retain Fruit 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Retain Fruit 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Retain Fruit 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Retain Fruit 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 Retain Fruit 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 Retain Fruit can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Retain Fruit has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Retain Fruit to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share case study. Retain Fruit can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Retain Fruit 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.
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 Retain Fruit in the consumer business. Now Retain Fruit can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Retain Fruit 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Retain Fruit 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.
Threats ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share, Retain Fruit 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 .
Regulatory challenges
– Retain Fruit 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Retain Fruit demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Retain Fruit.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Retain Fruit has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Retain Fruit 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 Retain Fruit with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Retain Fruit 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Retain Fruit 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.
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. Retain Fruit can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Retain Fruit 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.
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 Retain Fruit in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Retain Fruit is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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 ReTain: Managing Growth and Market Share 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 Retain Fruit needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
