Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. The growing popularity of mobile hand-held devices is opening up intriguing new possibilities for what the authors refer to as "brand in the hand" marketing. Because individuals can be, and often are, connected anytime and anyplace, mobile marketing can be used to collect data through the wireless Internet to determine not only the exact location of a consumer at a given time, but also why that individual might be there. With that information, more meaningful or relevant advertising messages or promotions can be delivered to the consumer on a mobile device. Before companies rush into this new marketing arena, though, they need to understand some fundamental issues. How does mobile marketing differ from traditional approaches? When should a company pursue a brand in the hand initiative? Does mobile marketing have to be integrated within an overall marketing strategy and, if so, how? Moreover, how should companies address privacy issues? These are of particular concern, in part because of the personal nature of mobile devices.
Swot Analysis of "Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing" written by Fareena Sultan, Andrew Rohm includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mobile Marketing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation, IT, Marketing, Security & privacy and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mobile Marketing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mobile Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mobile Marketing
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 Mobile Marketing
Strengths Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mobile Marketing in Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Mobile Marketing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Mobile Marketing is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mobile Marketing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mobile Marketing 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mobile Marketing is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mobile Marketing 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.
Organizational Resilience of Mobile Marketing
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Mobile Marketing does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mobile Marketing is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mobile Marketing in the sector have low bargaining power. Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mobile Marketing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mobile Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mobile Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mobile Marketing in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mobile Marketing 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.
Weaknesses Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Mobile Marketing, firm in the HBR case study Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing, is just above the industry average. Mobile Marketing needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing, in the dynamic environment Mobile Marketing has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Mobile Marketing has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Mobile Marketing 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Mobile Marketing 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 - Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Mobile Marketing supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mobile Marketing vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mobile Marketing products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mobile Marketing needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing HBR case study mentions - Mobile Marketing 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing, it seems that the employees of Mobile Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing | 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mobile Marketing 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mobile Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mobile Marketing to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mobile Marketing has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Mobile Marketing to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing case study. Mobile Marketing can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Mobile Marketing 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mobile Marketing 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mobile Marketing 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mobile Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mobile Marketing 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mobile Marketing to increase its market reach. Mobile Marketing 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mobile Marketing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mobile Marketing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
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. Mobile Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mobile Marketing is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Mobile Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mobile Marketing 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
– Mobile Marketing 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Mobile Marketing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing, Mobile Marketing may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Regulatory challenges
– Mobile Marketing 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.
Environmental challenges
– Mobile Marketing 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. Mobile Marketing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
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. Mobile Marketing needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mobile Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Coming Era of "Brand in the Hand" Marketing 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 Mobile Marketing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.