The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global?
With four percent of the world's population involved in a sport that generated nearly $3.1 billion in annual revenue, it is no wonder that football clubs were seeking to capitalize on global opportunities. However, as football clubs moved beyond their traditional borders, they confronted the realities of globalization and struggled to determine how to evolve their marketing strategies to differentiate their brand among the competition. Club AtlA?tico de Madrid (AtlA?tico Madrid) was facing such a problem in 2008. Despite a rich history, loyal fan support, and even recent steps to internationalize-such as celebrity endorsements and exhibition matches against U.S. teams-the Club remained largely a Spanish brand and in the shadow of its cross-town rival Real Madrid on the world stage. It was the end of the 2007/2008 football season, and Club AtlA?tico de Madrid appeared to have turned a corner in terms of performance on the field. The Club had recently completed its best season in ten years, finishing fourth in Spain's top professional league. However, the Club's revenue growth did not match expectations. Just one year earlier, CEO Miguel Angel Gil Marin had stated the following goal: "our brand will help us to double revenues in two years." Although he had added that the "AtlA?tico Madrid" brand was a valuable asset very familiar among Spaniards, he had also admitted that the Club would need to adapt to the increasing globalization of football. The Club was committed to increasing revenue through a renewed focus on marketing and brand building intended to increase awareness and attractiveness of the AtlA?tico Madrid brand. But how could the Club achieve this? Should and could it try to make AtlA?tico Madrid a household name around the world?
Swot Analysis of "The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global?" written by Jeffrey W. Overby includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Atla Tico facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Atla Tico, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Atla Tico 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Atla Tico
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 Atla Tico
Strengths The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Atla Tico in The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Atla Tico 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 Atla Tico is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Atla Tico has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Atla Tico 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Atla Tico to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Atla Tico to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Atla Tico 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Atla Tico 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 The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Atla Tico is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Atla Tico is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Atla Tico is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Atla Tico 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.
Analytics focus
– Atla Tico 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 Jeffrey W. Overby 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Atla Tico in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Atla Tico has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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.
Weaknesses The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Atla Tico is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Atla Tico needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Atla Tico to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Atla Tico 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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 Atla Tico has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Atla Tico 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Atla Tico, firm in the HBR case study The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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 Atla Tico 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global?, in the dynamic environment Atla Tico has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Atla Tico has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Atla Tico products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Atla Tico needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jeffrey W. Overby suggests that, Atla Tico 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? HBR case study mentions - Atla Tico 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Atla Tico 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? | 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Atla Tico has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Atla Tico to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? case study. Atla Tico can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Atla Tico to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Atla Tico 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 Atla Tico to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Atla Tico 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
– Atla Tico 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Atla Tico 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Atla Tico is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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, Atla Tico 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Atla Tico 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 Atla Tico 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
– Atla Tico 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 Atla Tico 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.
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. Atla Tico 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. Atla Tico 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.
Threats The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Atla Tico with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing wage structure of Atla Tico
– 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 Atla Tico.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Atla Tico 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.
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. Atla Tico needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Atla Tico is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Atla Tico 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Atla Tico 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? .
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 Atla Tico 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 The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global?, Atla Tico 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 .
Environmental challenges
– Atla Tico 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. Atla Tico can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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. Atla Tico can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Atla Tico 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 The Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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 Branding of Club AtlA?tico de Madrid: Local or Global? 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 Atla Tico needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
