A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market
Faith-based marketing, or addressing consumers' religious sensibilities with faith-friendly offerings, represents a new wave of growth for companies. While kosher goods and Christian movies are well-known examples of this trend, companies continue to overlook opportunities for growing faith-based segments. Representing the fastest-growing faith-based consumer group in the world, Muslims, in particular, are a largely untapped segment. Forward-looking companies such as NestlA?, Walmart, and McDonald's consider this segment as the next 'one-billion' market, after China and India, and are developing strategies to appeal to the Muslim consumer. We focus on the key to tapping into the sizable Muslim spending power: halal marketing. Contrary to common belief, halal marketing is not confined to dietary goods. Rather, it pertains to a diverse range of offerings from cosmetics to tourism that represents a global market worth $2.1 trillion annually. Modern interpretations of halal echo the claims of organic and fair-trade industries, broadening the appeal of halal to mainstream consumers. Despite the vast opportunities in halal marketing, winning the pocketbooks of Muslim consumers involves cultural, operational, and geopolitical challenges. We provide an overview of this emerging market and offer five lessons for successful halal marketing.
Swot Analysis of "A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market" written by Elif Izberk-Bilgin, Cheryl Nakata includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Halal Faith facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Organizational culture and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Halal Faith, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Halal Faith 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Halal Faith
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 Halal Faith
Strengths A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Halal Faith in A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Halal Faith is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Halal Faith 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Halal Faith is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Halal Faith 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 Halal Faith is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Halal Faith in the sector have low bargaining power. A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Halal Faith to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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.
Training and development
– Halal Faith has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Halal Faith to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Halal Faith to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Halal Faith in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Halal Faith 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 Halal Faith in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Halal Faith has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Halal Faith 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
– Halal Faith 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Halal Faith 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market, is just above the industry average. Halal Faith 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Halal Faith is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Halal Faith 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Halal Faith 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Halal Faith 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market, 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elif Izberk-Bilgin, Cheryl Nakata suggests that, Halal Faith 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Halal Faith is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market, it seems that the employees of Halal Faith 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.
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 Halal Faith supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Halal Faith vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market | 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Halal Faith 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 Halal Faith to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Halal Faith can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Halal Faith to increase its market reach. Halal Faith 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Halal Faith can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Halal Faith is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Halal Faith can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Halal Faith operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Halal Faith 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Halal Faith can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Halal Faith 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.
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 Halal Faith in the consumer business. Now Halal Faith 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 Halal Faith 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Halal Faith 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Halal Faith to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Halal Faith can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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.
Threats A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market are -
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 Halal Faith.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Halal Faith with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Halal Faith 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.
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 Halal Faith business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Halal Faith 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market, Halal Faith 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 Halal Faith is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Halal Faith
– 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 Halal Faith.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Halal Faith 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. Halal Faith 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 Halal Faith 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Halal Faith 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market .
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. Halal Faith can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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 A New Look at Faith-Based Marketing: The Global Halal Market 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 Halal Faith needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.