ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic
On July 12, 1971, Sport Participation Canada, a not-for-profit company, was established by the Canadian government to encourage Canadians to increase their physical activity levels to fight the "obesity epidemic" that was causing health care costs to soar. One year later, the company was nationalized and renamed ParticipACTION. To spread its message, it relied on humourous ads, especially on TV, to encourage adults and children to exercise more. Despite considerable public support, the organization did not have enough capital to continue its operations without increased government funding and was forced to close in January 2001. The resulting uproar led the government to change its mind, and ParticipACTION was revived in 2007. However, its success with nationwide programs such as Sports Day in Canada and Bring Back Play was not enough to save it from further cuts in 2014. Would turning to social media outlets help to re-energize its campaign to encourage Canadians to adopt a healthier lifestyle? Could the organization attract enough donations from the public and private institutions to make up for the shortfall in government funds? These were the dilemmas facing its board in 2015.
Authors :: Dante Pirouz, Monica C. LaBarge, Karam Putros
Swot Analysis of "ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic" written by Dante Pirouz, Monica C. LaBarge, Karam Putros includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Participaction Canadians facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Participaction Canadians, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Participaction Canadians 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Participaction Canadians
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 Participaction Canadians
Strengths ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Participaction Canadians in ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Participaction Canadians 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Participaction Canadians 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 Participaction Canadians is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Participaction Canadians to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Participaction Canadians to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Participaction Canadians 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Participaction Canadians
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Participaction Canadians does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Participaction Canadians has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Participaction Canadians is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Participaction Canadians 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 Participaction Canadians in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Participaction Canadians has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Participaction Canadians 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Participaction Canadians 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Participaction Canadians in the sector have low bargaining power. ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Participaction Canadians to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Participaction Canadians is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic, in the dynamic environment Participaction Canadians has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Participaction Canadians 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, Participaction Canadians is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Participaction Canadians 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. Participaction Canadians 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 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 Participaction Canadians supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Participaction Canadians vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Participaction Canadians 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Participaction Canadians 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 - ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Participaction Canadians 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Dante Pirouz, Monica C. LaBarge, Karam Putros suggests that, Participaction Canadians is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Participaction Canadians, firm in the HBR case study ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic, it seems that the employees of Participaction Canadians 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic | 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic are -
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. Participaction Canadians can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Participaction Canadians 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Participaction Canadians 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Participaction Canadians to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Participaction Canadians can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Participaction Canadians 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Participaction Canadians can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Participaction Canadians 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.
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 Participaction Canadians 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Participaction Canadians 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 Participaction Canadians to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Participaction Canadians 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Participaction Canadians has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Participaction Canadians to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic case study. Participaction Canadians can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Participaction Canadians can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Participaction Canadians 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic are -
Environmental challenges
– Participaction Canadians 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. Participaction Canadians can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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 Participaction Canadians business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Participaction Canadians needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Participaction Canadians will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Participaction Canadians 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Participaction Canadians 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
– Participaction Canadians 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic, Participaction Canadians 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 Participaction Canadians
– 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 Participaction Canadians.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Participaction Canadians with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Participaction Canadians.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Participaction Canadians has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Participaction Canadians 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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 ParticipACTION: A Social Marketing Challenge to Halt Canada's Obesity Epidemic 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 Participaction Canadians needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
