Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market
Kumar was curious to find out whether consumers were really loyal to the brands in the toothpaste category. He was interested in the toothpaste category, and Himalaya had herbal offerings in the retail and prescriptive segments. Were consumers loyal to a particular brand of toothpaste? Did they remember the functional brand benefits? Were consumers buying brands due to the social benefits reflected in the ads? Did consumers continue to buy particular brands without switching, due to inertia? Were consumers interested in herbal offerings? How should Himalaya be perceived by consumers? This medley of issues presented yet another opportunity to an academic to conceptualize consumer behaviour, one that was perhaps unique to the Indian context.The concept of product involvement differentiated consumer segments based on the degrees of personal interest expressed by consumers with regard to specific products and services. High-involvement categories required consumers to be involved in extensive buying behavior that led to one or more of the following aspects: risk reduction, enhancement of self-image, and a greater degree of gratification in having achieved an optimal choice after examining the various alternatives in the category. Low-involvement categories were those that were bought in a routine manner by the consumer, with a degree of personal interest that was lower than that associated with the high-involvement categories. Marketers always had to face competitive challenges in enhancing the degree of involvement even in low-involvement categories through appropriate branding initiatives. The toothpaste category was one such category in the Indian context.
Swot Analysis of "Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market" written by S. Ramesh Kumar, Nitya Guruvayurappan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Toothpaste Involvement facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Toothpaste Involvement, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Toothpaste Involvement 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Toothpaste Involvement
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 Toothpaste Involvement
Strengths Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Toothpaste Involvement in Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Toothpaste Involvement in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Toothpaste Involvement is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by S. Ramesh Kumar, Nitya Guruvayurappan can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Strong track record of project management
– Toothpaste Involvement is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Toothpaste Involvement
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Toothpaste Involvement does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Toothpaste Involvement is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market 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.
High brand equity
– Toothpaste Involvement has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Toothpaste Involvement to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Toothpaste Involvement are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Training and development
– Toothpaste Involvement has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Toothpaste Involvement 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Toothpaste Involvement digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Toothpaste Involvement has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Toothpaste Involvement has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Weaknesses Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Toothpaste Involvement has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Toothpaste Involvement supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Toothpaste Involvement vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Toothpaste Involvement has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market, it seems that the employees of Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Toothpaste Involvement is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market HBR case study mentions - Toothpaste Involvement takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, S. Ramesh Kumar, Nitya Guruvayurappan suggests that, Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Toothpaste Involvement has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Toothpaste Involvement, firm in the HBR case study Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Toothpaste Involvement can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Toothpaste Involvement operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Toothpaste Involvement 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, Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Toothpaste Involvement has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Toothpaste Involvement to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market case study. Toothpaste Involvement can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Toothpaste Involvement to increase its market reach. Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Toothpaste Involvement 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Toothpaste Involvement to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Toothpaste Involvement can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Toothpaste Involvement 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, Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Toothpaste Involvement is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Toothpaste Involvement 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 Toothpaste Involvement to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Toothpaste Involvement 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging Market .
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. Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Increasing wage structure of Toothpaste Involvement
– 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 Toothpaste Involvement.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Toothpaste Involvement 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Toothpaste Involvement 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
– Toothpaste Involvement 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.
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 Toothpaste Involvement.
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. Toothpaste Involvement needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Toothpaste Involvement is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Toothpaste Involvement can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Toothpaste Involvement 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.
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 Toothpaste Involvement in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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 Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and Brand Involvement in an Emerging 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 Toothpaste Involvement needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.