Helps students develop an effective sales pitch for their greatest asset--themselves. Also, broadens their understanding of how salespeople sell products and services. Before class, students are asked to interview a potential employer and to develop a preliminary sales pitch. Once in class, students work through an exercise that helps them refine the sales pitch and better understand several key marketing principles. Leads to an engaging and thought-provoking discussion.
Swot Analysis of "Sell Yourself!" written by Thomas Steenburgh, Michael I. Norton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Pitch Helps facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sell Yourself! case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Managing people, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sell Yourself! casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sell Yourself! case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pitch Helps, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pitch Helps 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 Sell Yourself! can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sell Yourself! case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pitch Helps
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 Pitch Helps
Strengths Sell Yourself! | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pitch Helps in Sell Yourself! Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Pitch Helps is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Pitch Helps in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Pitch Helps digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Pitch Helps 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Pitch Helps in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Pitch Helps has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Pitch Helps to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Pitch Helps 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 Sell Yourself! HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Pitch Helps is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sell Yourself! 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
– Pitch Helps is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Sell Yourself! are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pitch Helps 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 Sell Yourself! - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Pitch Helps has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sell Yourself! 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.
Organizational Resilience of Pitch Helps
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Pitch Helps 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
– Sell Yourself! firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Pitch Helps to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Pitch Helps to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Pitch Helps 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.
Weaknesses Sell Yourself! | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sell Yourself! are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Sell Yourself! 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 Pitch Helps has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Pitch Helps 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sell Yourself! HBR case study mentions - Pitch Helps 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Sell Yourself!, in the dynamic environment Pitch Helps has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Pitch Helps has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Pitch Helps, firm in the HBR case study Sell Yourself! needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Pitch Helps is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Sell Yourself! 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 Pitch Helps 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 - Sell Yourself! should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Pitch Helps 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. Pitch Helps 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Pitch Helps products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Pitch Helps needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sell Yourself!, is just above the industry average. Pitch Helps 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Pitch Helps 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 Sell Yourself! | 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 Sell Yourself! are -
Loyalty marketing
– Pitch Helps 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Pitch Helps 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 Sell Yourself! - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Pitch Helps to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Pitch Helps can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Pitch Helps 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. Pitch Helps 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Pitch Helps 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, Pitch Helps 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Pitch Helps can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pitch Helps to increase its market reach. Pitch Helps 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Pitch Helps 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 Pitch Helps to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Pitch Helps 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pitch Helps 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Pitch Helps has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Pitch Helps to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Sell Yourself! case study. Pitch Helps can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Pitch Helps in the consumer business. Now Pitch Helps can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Sell Yourself! External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sell Yourself! are -
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 Pitch Helps business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Pitch Helps with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Pitch Helps 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. Pitch Helps can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Pitch Helps 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Pitch Helps 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Sell Yourself!, Pitch Helps 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 .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Pitch Helps is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pitch Helps 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 Sell Yourself! .
Increasing wage structure of Pitch Helps
– 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 Pitch Helps.
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. Pitch Helps 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
– Pitch Helps 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sell Yourself! 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 Sell Yourself! 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 Sell Yourself! 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 Sell Yourself! 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 Sell Yourself! 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 Pitch Helps needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.