British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B)
Provides details on the results of the campaign for British Airways (BA) in terms of expenditure by BA, press coverage, effect on bookings, and effect on overall market share.
Swot Analysis of "British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B)" written by Stephen A. Greyser, Wendy Schille includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ba Airways facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Public relations and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ba Airways, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ba Airways 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ba Airways
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 Ba Airways
Strengths British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ba Airways in British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Ba Airways has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ba Airways to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management
– Ba Airways is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ba Airways 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)
– Ba Airways 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Ba Airways
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Ba Airways does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Ba Airways has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ba Airways to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ba Airways to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ba Airways 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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
– Ba Airways is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ba Airways in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Ba Airways 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 Ba Airways is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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 Ba Airways has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Ba Airways, firm in the HBR case study British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Ba Airways supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B), it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ba Airways vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stephen A. Greyser, Wendy Schille suggests that, Ba Airways 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) HBR case study mentions - Ba Airways 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, Ba Airways 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Ba Airways 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ba Airways 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ba Airways 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ba Airways 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B), is just above the industry average. Ba Airways 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) | 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) are -
Loyalty marketing
– Ba Airways 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ba Airways 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 Ba Airways to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Ba Airways can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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.
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 Ba Airways 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ba Airways to increase its market reach. Ba Airways 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ba Airways 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ba Airways has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Ba Airways to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) case study. Ba Airways can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Ba Airways can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ba Airways is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ba Airways can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ba Airways 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ba Airways 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ba Airways 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ba Airways to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ba Airways 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ba Airways 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ba Airways 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.
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 Ba Airways business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Ba Airways in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ba Airways is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Ba Airways.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ba Airways 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ba Airways 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ba Airways has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ba Airways 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.
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. Ba Airways 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ba Airways 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B), Ba Airways 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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 British Airways: "Go for It, America!" Promotion (B) 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 Ba Airways needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.