How to Better Value Branded Businesses SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of How to Better Value Branded Businesses
For investment bankers, consultants, and entrepreneurs, valuing branded businesses as accurately as possible is of critical importance. This case introduces a new approach to valuing branded businesses, one that incorporates public perception of brand characteristics. This case reviews traditional methods of valuation and walks students through the new approach, using Hewlett-Packard as an example.
Swot Analysis of "How to Better Value Branded Businesses" written by Natalie Mizik includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Branded Valuing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in How to Better Value Branded Businesses case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial markets, Mergers & acquisitions, Technology and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the How to Better Value Branded Businesses casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of How to Better Value Branded Businesses
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in How to Better Value Branded Businesses case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Branded Valuing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Branded Valuing 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in How to Better Value Branded Businesses case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Branded Valuing
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 Branded Valuing
Strengths How to Better Value Branded Businesses | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Branded Valuing in How to Better Value Branded Businesses Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Branded Valuing has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in How to Better Value Branded Businesses Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Branded Valuing 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 Branded Valuing in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Branded Valuing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Branded Valuing 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Branded Valuing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Branded Valuing 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Branded Valuing 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– How to Better Value Branded Businesses firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Branded Valuing to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Branded Valuing to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Branded Valuing is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Branded Valuing is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the How to Better Value Branded Businesses are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Branded Valuing 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Branded Valuing 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 Branded Valuing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in How to Better Value Branded Businesses Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Branded Valuing is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in How to Better Value Branded Businesses Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses How to Better Value Branded Businesses | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of How to Better Value Branded Businesses are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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 Branded Valuing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As How to Better Value Branded Businesses HBR case study mentions - Branded Valuing 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study How to Better Value Branded Businesses, is just above the industry average. Branded Valuing 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Branded Valuing has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Branded Valuing is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Branded Valuing needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Branded Valuing to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Branded Valuing 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Branded Valuing, firm in the HBR case study How to Better Value Branded Businesses needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Branded Valuing 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Branded Valuing 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Branded Valuing has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Branded Valuing is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities How to Better Value Branded Businesses | 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses are -
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 Branded Valuing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Branded Valuing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Branded Valuing 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Branded Valuing 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Branded Valuing 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Branded Valuing 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, Branded Valuing 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Branded Valuing to increase its market reach. Branded Valuing 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Branded Valuing 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Branded Valuing has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Branded Valuing to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the How to Better Value Branded Businesses case study. Branded Valuing can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Branded Valuing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Branded Valuing 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, Branded Valuing 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, How to Better Value Branded Businesses, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Branded Valuing 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. Branded Valuing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Branded Valuing 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.
Threats How to Better Value Branded Businesses External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study How to Better Value Branded Businesses are -
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Branded Valuing 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Branded Valuing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study How to Better Value Branded Businesses, Branded Valuing 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 .
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 Branded Valuing business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Branded Valuing 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Branded Valuing is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Branded Valuing in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Branded Valuing 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.
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. Branded Valuing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Branded Valuing 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses .
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. Branded Valuing will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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 How to Better Value Branded Businesses 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 Branded Valuing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.