Case Study Description of Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords
After identifying a need in the market for a simpler way to manage prenatal nutrition, three Darden classmates develop an idea for a subscription e-commerce business that provides a monthly box of nutritionist-approved prenatal snacks, recipes, personal care products, and information for expectant mothers. To determine the best name for their product, the women run Google AdWords campaigns and choose the one that performed best. But was this the right decision, or should they rerun the test with the two best-performing names? And was this the most important business decision they needed to make at this point, or were there more pressing matters to address?
Swot Analysis of "Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords" written by Meghan Murray, Meghan Guinee, Emily Weinman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Adwords Prenatal facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Adwords Prenatal, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Adwords Prenatal 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Adwords Prenatal
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 Adwords Prenatal
Strengths Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Adwords Prenatal in Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Adwords Prenatal has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Adwords Prenatal 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.
High brand equity
– Adwords Prenatal has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Adwords Prenatal to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Adwords Prenatal has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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 Adwords Prenatal
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Adwords Prenatal does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Adwords Prenatal 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Adwords Prenatal digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Adwords Prenatal 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Adwords Prenatal is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Adwords Prenatal to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Adwords Prenatal to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Adwords Prenatal is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Adwords Prenatal is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Adwords Prenatal 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Adwords Prenatal 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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 Adwords Prenatal has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Adwords Prenatal, firm in the HBR case study Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Adwords Prenatal has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Meghan Murray, Meghan Guinee, Emily Weinman suggests that, Adwords Prenatal 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Adwords Prenatal products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Adwords Prenatal needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Adwords Prenatal has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Adwords Prenatal 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. Adwords Prenatal 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Adwords Prenatal 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Adwords Prenatal is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Adwords Prenatal needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Adwords Prenatal to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords, is just above the industry average. Adwords Prenatal 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.
Opportunities Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords | 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords are -
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. Adwords Prenatal 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. Adwords Prenatal 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Adwords Prenatal can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Adwords Prenatal 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Adwords Prenatal 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Adwords Prenatal 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Adwords Prenatal to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Adwords Prenatal can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Adwords Prenatal 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Adwords Prenatal 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Adwords Prenatal 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.
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. Adwords Prenatal can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Adwords Prenatal in the consumer business. Now Adwords Prenatal can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Adwords Prenatal can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Adwords Prenatal 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.
Threats Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Adwords Prenatal can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Adwords Prenatal 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.
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 Adwords Prenatal in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Adwords Prenatal 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Adwords Prenatal in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Adwords Prenatal.
Increasing wage structure of Adwords Prenatal
– 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 Adwords Prenatal.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Adwords Prenatal is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Adwords Prenatal 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.
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.
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. Adwords Prenatal needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Adwords Prenatal 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. Adwords Prenatal can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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 Pregnancy Pack: Branding with AdWords 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 Adwords Prenatal needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
