The Slingshot: Improving Water Access SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Slingshot: Improving Water Access
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.In 2012, over 750 million people around the globe lacked access to safe drinking water. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, sought to bring fresh water to poor and rural areas with the Slingshot, a water purification device. Kamen's challenge was to identify ways to distribute the Slingshot to areas where it was most needed. A partnership with the Coca-Cola Company helped Kamen to pilot distribution of the Slingshot in low-access regions.
Authors :: John A. Quelch, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Margaret Rodriguez
Swot Analysis of "The Slingshot: Improving Water Access" written by John A. Quelch, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Margaret Rodriguez includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Slingshot Kamen facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Slingshot: Improving Water Access case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Demographics, Economy, Emerging markets, Health, Innovation, Intellectual property, Marketing, Personnel policies and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Slingshot: Improving Water Access casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Slingshot: Improving Water Access
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Slingshot: Improving Water Access case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Slingshot Kamen, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Slingshot Kamen 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Slingshot: Improving Water Access case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Slingshot Kamen
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 Slingshot Kamen
Strengths The Slingshot: Improving Water Access | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Slingshot Kamen in The Slingshot: Improving Water Access Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Slingshot Kamen digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Slingshot Kamen 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Slingshot Kamen in the sector have low bargaining power. The Slingshot: Improving Water Access has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Slingshot Kamen to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– The Slingshot: Improving Water Access firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Slingshot Kamen to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Slingshot Kamen to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Slingshot: Improving Water Access Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Learning organization
- Slingshot Kamen 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 Slingshot Kamen is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Slingshot: Improving Water Access Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Slingshot Kamen has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Slingshot Kamen 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Slingshot Kamen 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Slingshot Kamen in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Slingshot Kamen 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Slingshot Kamen is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Slingshot: Improving Water Access Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Slingshot Kamen is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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
– Slingshot Kamen has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Slingshot Kamen to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses The Slingshot: Improving Water Access | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Slingshot: Improving Water Access are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Slingshot: Improving Water Access, it seems that the employees of Slingshot Kamen 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The Slingshot: Improving Water Access HBR case study mentions - Slingshot Kamen takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John A. Quelch, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Margaret Rodriguez suggests that, Slingshot Kamen 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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 Slingshot Kamen 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Slingshot Kamen 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. Slingshot Kamen 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Slingshot Kamen is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The Slingshot: Improving Water Access can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Slingshot Kamen 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 - The Slingshot: Improving Water Access should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Slingshot Kamen 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Slingshot Kamen 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The Slingshot: Improving Water Access, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Slingshot Kamen has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Opportunities The Slingshot: Improving Water Access | 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Slingshot Kamen can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Slingshot Kamen 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Slingshot Kamen 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.
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. Slingshot Kamen 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. Slingshot Kamen 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.
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. Slingshot Kamen can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Slingshot Kamen 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 Slingshot Kamen to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Slingshot Kamen has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Slingshot Kamen to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Slingshot: Improving Water Access case study. Slingshot Kamen can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Slingshot Kamen 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, Slingshot Kamen is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Slingshot Kamen can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Slingshot Kamen to increase its market reach. Slingshot Kamen 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.
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 Slingshot Kamen 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Slingshot Kamen 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, The Slingshot: Improving Water Access, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats The Slingshot: Improving Water Access External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Slingshot: Improving Water Access are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Slingshot Kamen has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Slingshot Kamen 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.
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 Slingshot Kamen in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Slingshot Kamen 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Slingshot Kamen 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. Slingshot Kamen 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 Slingshot Kamen business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Slingshot Kamen with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Slingshot Kamen is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Slingshot Kamen 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Slingshot: Improving Water Access, Slingshot Kamen 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 Slingshot Kamen
– 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 Slingshot Kamen.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Slingshot Kamen 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access .
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. Slingshot Kamen 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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 The Slingshot: Improving Water Access 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 Slingshot Kamen needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.