Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy
This note takes the reader through the development of a positioning statement for a target market. The exercise includes determining the relevant point of reference (market definition, product category, competitive set) and associated points of parity, the point of difference, and why customers should believe the product or service can deliver on the desired positioning. The appendix contains a description of perceptual mapping, a tool that is often used when making positioning decisions.
Swot Analysis of "Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy" written by Marian Moore, Richard Helstein includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Positioning Perceptual facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Positioning Perceptual, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Positioning Perceptual 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Positioning Perceptual
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 Positioning Perceptual
Strengths Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Positioning Perceptual in Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Positioning Perceptual 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Positioning Perceptual digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Positioning Perceptual 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
– Positioning Perceptual is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Positioning Perceptual is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Positioning Perceptual 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.
Organizational Resilience of Positioning Perceptual
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Positioning Perceptual does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Positioning Perceptual has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Positioning Perceptual to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Positioning Perceptual in the sector have low bargaining power. Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Positioning Perceptual to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Positioning Perceptual is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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.
Learning organization
- Positioning Perceptual 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 Positioning Perceptual is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Positioning Perceptual 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 Positioning Perceptual in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Positioning Perceptual is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Positioning Perceptual 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Positioning Perceptual is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Positioning Perceptual needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Positioning Perceptual to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy, it seems that the employees of Positioning Perceptual 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Positioning Perceptual, firm in the HBR case study Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Positioning Perceptual products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Positioning Perceptual needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Positioning Perceptual 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Marian Moore, Richard Helstein suggests that, Positioning Perceptual 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy HBR case study mentions - Positioning Perceptual 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Positioning Perceptual 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.
Opportunities Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy | 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Positioning Perceptual is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Positioning Perceptual 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Positioning Perceptual 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Positioning Perceptual 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, Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Positioning Perceptual 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Positioning Perceptual 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Positioning Perceptual 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 Positioning Perceptual to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Positioning Perceptual has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Positioning Perceptual to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy case study. Positioning Perceptual can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Positioning Perceptual can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Positioning Perceptual can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Positioning Perceptual operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Positioning Perceptual to increase its market reach. Positioning Perceptual 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.
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. Positioning Perceptual 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. Positioning Perceptual 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.
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 Positioning Perceptual 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.
Threats Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Positioning Perceptual 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.
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 Positioning Perceptual in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Positioning Perceptual 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.
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. Positioning Perceptual 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy, Positioning Perceptual 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Positioning Perceptual with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Positioning Perceptual 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.
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 Positioning Perceptual business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Positioning Perceptual 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Positioning Perceptual is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Positioning Perceptual has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Positioning Perceptual 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Positioning Perceptual 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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 Positioning: The Essence of Marketing Strategy 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 Positioning Perceptual needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
