S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth
Paris-based S.T.Dupont is engaged in the manufacture, marketing and sale of luxury goods for men and women, including lighters, pens, jewelry, leather goods, eyewear, watches, belts, fragrances and casual and formal attire. Founded in 1872 by an entrepreneurial French photographer and carriage-maker, the company began making luxury leather luggage for wealthy aristocrats. It was owned and managed by the same family until the 1970s, when it was sold to the American multinational Gillette. A decade later, it was sold to Hong Kong conglomerate Dickson Concepts. Having largely lost its brand identity, S.T.Dupont languished until 2006, when a new management team based in Paris successfully turned the company around with a unique branding and marketing strategy. Please visit the dedicated case website http://cases.insead.edu/stdupont to access supplementary material.
Authors :: Joerg Niessing, David Dubois, Brian Henry
Swot Analysis of "S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth" written by Joerg Niessing, David Dubois, Brian Henry includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that S.t.dupont Luxury facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the S.t.dupont Luxury, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of S.t.dupont Luxury
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 S.t.dupont Luxury
Strengths S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of S.t.dupont Luxury in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– S.t.dupont Luxury is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled S.t.dupont Luxury to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped S.t.dupont Luxury to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– S.t.dupont Luxury is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of S.t.dupont Luxury in the sector have low bargaining power. S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps S.t.dupont Luxury to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.t.dupont Luxury in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– S.t.dupont Luxury has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled S.t.dupont Luxury to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– S.t.dupont Luxury has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Weaknesses S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth are -
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, is just above the industry average. S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, S.t.dupont Luxury has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, in the dynamic environment S.t.dupont Luxury has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. S.t.dupont Luxury 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, S.t.dupont Luxury needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Need for greater diversity
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.t.dupont Luxury has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, it seems that the employees of S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth | 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth are -
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 S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
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 S.t.dupont Luxury in the consumer business. Now S.t.dupont Luxury can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Loyalty marketing
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, S.t.dupont Luxury is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Buying journey improvements
– S.t.dupont Luxury can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, S.t.dupont Luxury can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that S.t.dupont Luxury 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. S.t.dupont Luxury can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, S.t.dupont Luxury 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, S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects S.t.dupont Luxury can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of S.t.dupont Luxury has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help S.t.dupont Luxury to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth case study. S.t.dupont Luxury can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth, S.t.dupont Luxury may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Increasing wage structure of S.t.dupont Luxury
– 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 S.t.dupont Luxury.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Regulatory challenges
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
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 S.t.dupont Luxury.
Consumer confidence and its impact on S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– S.t.dupont Luxury has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, S.t.dupont Luxury 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents S.t.dupont Luxury with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 S.t.dupont Luxury business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– S.t.dupont Luxury 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. S.t.dupont Luxury can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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. S.t.dupont Luxury 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, S.t.dupont Luxury 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.T.Dupont - The Renaissance of a French Luxury Brand: Building a Strong Brand across All Touchpoints for Sustainable Growth 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 S.t.dupont Luxury needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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