Case Study Description of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities
The general manager of GlaxoSmithKline India has been tasked to increase annual sales of the health food drink Boost to upwards of 18 per cent, without any significant change in contribution margins.Repositioning the brand could increase the size of the target market, but may also jeopardize the brand's sharply defined positioning. Attempting expansion of the distribution network, where the competition is strong and deeply entrenched, might strain company resources and may even be counterproductive. Executing the two strategies will require entirely different skills and the deployment of diverse resources. The general manager needs to make a firm and calculated choice. Jaydeep Mukherjee is affiliated with Management Development Institute.
Swot Analysis of "Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities" written by Jaydeep Mukherjee, Sriram Padmanabhan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Boost Margins.repositioning facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Boost Margins.repositioning, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Boost Margins.repositioning
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 Boost Margins.repositioning
Strengths Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Boost Margins.repositioning in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Boost Margins.repositioning digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boost Margins.repositioning in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Boost Margins.repositioning is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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.
Organizational Resilience of Boost Margins.repositioning
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Boost Margins.repositioning 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
– Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Boost Margins.repositioning to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Boost Margins.repositioning to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Boost Margins.repositioning in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Boost Margins.repositioning is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Boost Margins.repositioning has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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.
High brand equity
– Boost Margins.repositioning has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Boost Margins.repositioning to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boost Margins.repositioning has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, in the dynamic environment Boost Margins.repositioning has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Boost Margins.repositioning has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Boost Margins.repositioning is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Boost Margins.repositioning, firm in the HBR case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, it seems that the employees of Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Boost Margins.repositioning is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Boost Margins.repositioning needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Boost Margins.repositioning to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Opportunities Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities | 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Boost Margins.repositioning is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Boost Margins.repositioning 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, Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boost Margins.repositioning to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
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 Boost Margins.repositioning in the consumer business. Now Boost Margins.repositioning can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning 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. Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Boost Margins.repositioning to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Boost Margins.repositioning has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Boost Margins.repositioning to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities case study. Boost Margins.repositioning can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Boost Margins.repositioning can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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, Boost Margins.repositioning can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Boost Margins.repositioning operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Threats Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities are -
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. Boost Margins.repositioning can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Boost Margins.repositioning with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Boost Margins.repositioning has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
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 Boost Margins.repositioning business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Boost Margins.repositioning in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities, Boost Margins.repositioning 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 Boost Margins.repositioning is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Boost Margins.repositioning.
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 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.
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. Boost Margins.repositioning 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boosting Boost: Charting Growth Opportunities 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 Boost Margins.repositioning needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
