Case Study Description of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B)
Alain Chuard and Victoria Ransom reflected on their history as founders of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (Wildfire). Originally called Promotion Builder, Wildfire had evolved from an in-house marketing solution used by the duo's adventure travel company to a multi-platform software program used by thousands of businesses globally. The Wildfire product enabled these customers to develop customized social-media marketing campaigns composed of video and essay competitions, user-generated contests, quizzes, and coupons. Users could then push these promotions to their websites or social networks, such as Facebook, hi5, and LinkedIn. By summer 2011, Wildfire had achieved significant success and the founders believed that the company had reached a turning point. The team had analyzed the histories of similar industries (e.g., e-mail marketing) and determined that Wildfire's space likely would not support several independent companies and would ultimately experience an industry-wide consolidation. This meant that Wildfire would probably not be able to maintain the status quo and that Chuard and Ransom may need to consider the possibility of going public, getting acquired, or raising additional capital to bolster the firm's presence in the market. In May 2012, two large acquisitions occurred in the space and triggered a flurry of M&A activity. Among these events was an offer by Google to purchase Wildfire for $350 million with the contingency that Ransom and Chuard provide Google with a decision within 24 hours. The team set forth evaluating their options.
Swot Analysis of "Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B)" written by George Foster, Jason Luther includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wildfire Chuard facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Mergers & acquisitions, Social platforms and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wildfire Chuard, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wildfire Chuard 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wildfire Chuard
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 Wildfire Chuard
Strengths Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wildfire Chuard in Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wildfire Chuard is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Wildfire Chuard
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Wildfire Chuard does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Wildfire Chuard to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Wildfire Chuard to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Wildfire Chuard has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Wildfire Chuard 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wildfire Chuard 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Wildfire Chuard is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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
– Wildfire Chuard has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wildfire Chuard to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wildfire Chuard 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wildfire Chuard in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Wildfire Chuard has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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.
Learning organization
- Wildfire Chuard 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 Wildfire Chuard is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Wildfire Chuard 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 George Foster, Jason Luther 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wildfire Chuard 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wildfire Chuard is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Wildfire Chuard is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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 Wildfire Chuard 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Wildfire Chuard 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wildfire Chuard products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wildfire Chuard needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Wildfire Chuard 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.
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 Wildfire Chuard supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Wildfire Chuard vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B), is just above the industry average. Wildfire Chuard 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B), it seems that the employees of Wildfire Chuard 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Wildfire Chuard has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Opportunities Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) | 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Wildfire Chuard can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wildfire Chuard 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Wildfire Chuard 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.
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. Wildfire Chuard can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Wildfire Chuard can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Wildfire Chuard can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wildfire Chuard operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Wildfire Chuard 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Wildfire Chuard to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wildfire Chuard to increase its market reach. Wildfire Chuard 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Wildfire Chuard can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Wildfire Chuard has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Wildfire Chuard to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) case study. Wildfire Chuard 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 Wildfire Chuard 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Wildfire Chuard in the consumer business. Now Wildfire Chuard can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Wildfire Chuard to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) are -
Environmental challenges
– Wildfire Chuard 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. Wildfire Chuard can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing wage structure of Wildfire Chuard
– 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 Wildfire Chuard.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wildfire Chuard 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wildfire Chuard 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wildfire Chuard has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wildfire Chuard 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.
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.
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. Wildfire Chuard can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Wildfire Chuard 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.
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. Wildfire Chuard 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, Wildfire Chuard 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wildfire Chuard 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.
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 Wildfire Chuard.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B), Wildfire Chuard 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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 Wildfire Interactive Inc. (B) 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 Wildfire Chuard needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
