Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies
Effective brand management requires taking a long-term view of marketing decisions. Managing brands for the long run involves reinforcing brands or, if necessary, revitalizing brands. Reinforcing brands involves ensuring innovation in product design, manufacturing, and merchandising and ensuring relevance in user and usage imagery. Another critical consideration in reinforcing brands is the consistency of the marketing support that the brand receives, both in terms of the amount and nature of that support. Revitalizing a brand, on the other hand, requires either that lost sources of brand equity are recaptured ("a back to basics" approach) or that new sources of brand equity are identified and established. Two general approaches are possible: expanding the depth and/or breadth of brand awareness by improving brand recall and recognition of consumers during purchase or consumption settings; and improving the strength, favorability, and uniqueness of brand associations making up the brand image (either in terms of existing or new brand associations).
Swot Analysis of "Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies" written by Kevin Lane Keller includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Brand Brands facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brand Brands, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brand Brands 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brand Brands
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 Brand Brands
Strengths Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brand Brands in Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Brand Brands 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Brand Brands
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Brand Brands does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Brand Brands is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Brand Brands digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Brand Brands 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Brand Brands is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Brand Brands has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Brand Brands 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Brand Brands is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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.
High brand equity
– Brand Brands has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brand Brands to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Brand Brands 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.
Analytics focus
– Brand Brands 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 Kevin Lane Keller 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.
Weaknesses Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brand Brands, firm in the HBR case study Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Brand Brands has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Brand Brands 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Brand Brands products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Brand Brands needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Brand Brands 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Brand Brands 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Brand Brands 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. Brand Brands 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Brand Brands 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.
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 Brand Brands supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Brand Brands vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Brand Brands is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies, it seems that the employees of Brand Brands 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies | 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Brand Brands 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Brand Brands to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Brand Brands can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Brand Brands 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Brand Brands is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brand Brands 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, Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies, 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 Brand Brands 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, Brand Brands 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Brand Brands 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Brand Brands can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Manufacturing automation
– Brand Brands 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.
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. Brand Brands 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. Brand Brands 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Brand Brands 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Brand Brands can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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.
Threats Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies are -
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 Brand Brands in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies, Brand Brands 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 .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Brand Brands 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Brand Brands
– 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 Brand Brands.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Brand Brands 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.
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 Brand Brands business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Brand Brands.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Brand Brands can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies .
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. Brand Brands will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Regulatory challenges
– Brand Brands 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brand Brands 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Brand Brands 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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 Managing Brands for the Long Run: Effective Brand Reinforcement and Revitalization Strategies 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 Brand Brands needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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