Swot Analysis of "Boston Fights Drugs, Video" written by AD Council, V. Kasturi Rangan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Fights Drugs facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Boston Fights Drugs, Video case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Currency, Marketing, Social enterprise and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Boston Fights Drugs, Video casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing,
increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Boston Fights Drugs, Video
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Boston Fights Drugs, Video case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fights Drugs, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fights Drugs 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Boston Fights Drugs, Video case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fights Drugs
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 Fights Drugs
Strengths Boston Fights Drugs, Video | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fights Drugs in Boston Fights Drugs, Video Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Fights Drugs 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
– Fights Drugs has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fights Drugs 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fights Drugs in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fights Drugs 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.
Organizational Resilience of Fights Drugs
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Fights Drugs does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fights Drugs 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.
Learning organization
- Fights Drugs 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 Fights Drugs is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Boston Fights Drugs, Video Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fights Drugs is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Boston Fights Drugs, Video are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fights Drugs 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fights Drugs in the sector have low bargaining power. Boston Fights Drugs, Video has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fights Drugs to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fights Drugs digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fights Drugs has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fights Drugs is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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.
Weaknesses Boston Fights Drugs, Video | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Boston Fights Drugs, Video are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Fights Drugs 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Boston Fights Drugs, Video HBR case study mentions - Fights Drugs 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fights Drugs 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fights Drugs 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 - Boston Fights Drugs, Video should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Fights Drugs products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fights Drugs needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, AD Council, V. Kasturi Rangan suggests that, Fights Drugs 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fights Drugs is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Fights Drugs needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fights Drugs to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Boston Fights Drugs, Video, in the dynamic environment Fights Drugs has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fights Drugs has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Fights Drugs, firm in the HBR case study Boston Fights Drugs, Video needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fights Drugs 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Boston Fights Drugs, Video, is just above the industry average. Fights Drugs needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Opportunities Boston Fights Drugs, Video | 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Fights Drugs 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
– Fights Drugs 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fights Drugs to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Fights Drugs 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.
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 Fights Drugs 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fights Drugs 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.
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 Fights Drugs in the consumer business. Now Fights Drugs can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fights Drugs 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.
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. Fights Drugs 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. Fights Drugs can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Fights Drugs 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, Fights Drugs 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Fights Drugs 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 Fights Drugs to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fights Drugs has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Fights Drugs to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Boston Fights Drugs, Video case study. Fights Drugs can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Fights Drugs can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Boston Fights Drugs, Video External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Boston Fights Drugs, Video are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Fights Drugs with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Fights Drugs 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.
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 Fights Drugs business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. Fights Drugs 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fights Drugs 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video .
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. Fights Drugs needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Fights Drugs 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. Fights Drugs can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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 Fights Drugs.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fights Drugs 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Fights Drugs 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fights Drugs 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fights Drugs has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fights Drugs 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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 Fights Drugs needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.