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 - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, 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 -
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Fights Drugs 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 Fights Drugs in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fights Drugs 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
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.
High brand equity
– Fights Drugs has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Fights Drugs to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Fights Drugs has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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.
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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Boston Fights Drugs, Video firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fights Drugs to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fights Drugs to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
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.
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.
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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Fights Drugs 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Fights Drugs supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Boston Fights Drugs, Video, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Fights Drugs vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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 Boston Fights Drugs, Video can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fights Drugs is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
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 -
Manufacturing automation
– Fights Drugs 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fights Drugs is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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.
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.
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.
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. Fights Drugs can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
Buying journey improvements
– Fights Drugs can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Boston Fights Drugs, Video 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.
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.
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 -
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 Fights Drugs in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fights Drugs 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fights Drugs is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Boston Fights Drugs, Video, Fights Drugs 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
– 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.