Case Study Description of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada
An immigrant entrepreneur created Hi-Bridge Consulting Corporation, a company that imported and distributed alcoholic products in Canada, among other activities. In 2009, the entrepreneur brought Yanjing beer to Canada from China, even though the Chinese brewery did not have an articulated international expansion strategy in Canada at the time. Despite numerous challenges in the Canadian beer market, the entrepreneur made significant headway. However, six years after the product's introduction, she understood that many Canadian consumers were still not aware of Yanjing beer and that she needed to find an effective way to increase its market share. Kimberley Howard and William Wei are affiliated with Grant MacEwan College.
Authors :: Kimberley Howard, William Wei, Kaijin Nie
Swot Analysis of "Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada" written by Kimberley Howard, William Wei, Kaijin Nie includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Yanjing Beer facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing,
technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Yanjing Beer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Yanjing Beer
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 Yanjing Beer
Strengths Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Yanjing Beer in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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
– Yanjing Beer is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Yanjing Beer has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Yanjing Beer in the sector have low bargaining power. Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Yanjing Beer to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Yanjing Beer is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Yanjing Beer has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Yanjing Beer 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Yanjing Beer is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Yanjing Beer 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 Yanjing Beer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Yanjing Beer is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Yanjing Beer
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Yanjing Beer does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Yanjing Beer in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Yanjing Beer 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Kimberley Howard, William Wei, Kaijin Nie suggests that, Yanjing Beer 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.
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 Yanjing Beer supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Yanjing Beer vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Yanjing Beer is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Yanjing Beer 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Yanjing Beer 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Yanjing Beer 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. Yanjing Beer 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, is just above the industry average. Yanjing Beer 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, Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada, in the dynamic environment Yanjing Beer has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Yanjing Beer has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada | 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Yanjing Beer to increase its market reach. Yanjing Beer will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Yanjing Beer 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 Yanjing Beer to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Yanjing Beer 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Yanjing Beer can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Yanjing Beer operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Yanjing Beer can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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.
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. Yanjing Beer can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Yanjing Beer to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Yanjing Beer 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.
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. Yanjing Beer 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. Yanjing Beer 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Yanjing Beer 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Yanjing Beer 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Yanjing Beer 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Yanjing Beer can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Yanjing Beer with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Yanjing Beer 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Yanjing Beer has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Yanjing Beer 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.
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. Yanjing Beer needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Yanjing Beer 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Yanjing Beer 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.
Environmental challenges
– Yanjing Beer 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. Yanjing Beer can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Yanjing Beer 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.
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 Yanjing Beer business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Yanjing Beer 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada .
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. Yanjing Beer can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Yanjing Beer
– 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 Yanjing Beer.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Immigrant Entrepreneurship: Bringing Yanjing Beer to Canada 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 Yanjing Beer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
