Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma
The co-founders of Evoe Spring Spa need to decide on the positioning of their business in the nascent Indian spa market. Indian consumers perceive spas as an expensive indulgence for the rich, and some spa services are seen as socially and culturally unacceptable. As a result, the co-founders need to build this category by changing consumer attitudes toward spa services. To identify the target segment and the best positioning for Evoe, the co-founders study the market and their competitors and conduct qualitative consumer research. In the end, they must choose from three viable positioning concepts. Authors Ashita Aggarwal Sharma and Renuka Kamath are affiliated with SP Jain Institute of Management & Research.
Swot Analysis of "Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma" written by Ashita Aggarwal Sharma, Renuka Kamath, Sunil Rao includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Spa Evoe facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
technology disruption, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Spa Evoe, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Spa Evoe 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Spa Evoe
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 Spa Evoe
Strengths Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Spa Evoe in Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Spa Evoe 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Spa Evoe 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 Spa Evoe in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Spa Evoe 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 Ashita Aggarwal Sharma, Renuka Kamath, Sunil Rao 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.
Training and development
– Spa Evoe has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Spa Evoe in the sector have low bargaining power. Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Spa Evoe to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Spa Evoe is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Spa Evoe 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.
High brand equity
– Spa Evoe has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Spa Evoe to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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
– Spa Evoe is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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.
Learning organization
- Spa Evoe 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 Spa Evoe is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Spa Evoe is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Spa Evoe 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Spa Evoe 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma, in the dynamic environment Spa Evoe has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Spa Evoe has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma, it seems that the employees of Spa Evoe 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma HBR case study mentions - Spa Evoe 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Spa Evoe, firm in the HBR case study Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Spa Evoe products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Spa Evoe needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Spa Evoe has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Spa Evoe is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ashita Aggarwal Sharma, Renuka Kamath, Sunil Rao suggests that, Spa Evoe 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.
Opportunities Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma | 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma are -
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 Spa Evoe in the consumer business. Now Spa Evoe can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Spa Evoe to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Loyalty marketing
– Spa Evoe 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Spa Evoe 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.
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. Spa Evoe can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Spa Evoe 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Spa Evoe 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 Spa Evoe to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Spa Evoe 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. Spa Evoe 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Spa Evoe 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, Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Spa Evoe 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Spa Evoe 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
– Spa Evoe can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Spa Evoe 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.
Threats Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma are -
Environmental challenges
– Spa Evoe 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. Spa Evoe can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Spa Evoe needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma, Spa Evoe 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 .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Spa Evoe has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Spa Evoe 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Spa Evoe 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Spa Evoe 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Spa Evoe
– 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 Spa Evoe.
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 Spa Evoe.
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 Spa Evoe 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, Spa Evoe 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Spa Evoe 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Evoe Spring Spa: A Positioning Dilemma 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 Spa Evoe needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.