Case Study Description of CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division
In 1979 Leo Bontempo, marketing vice president of Ciba-Geigy Agricultural Division was deciding whether to purchase an $840,000 program for TeleSession. This was a marketing service designed to accelerate the adoption of new products among large innovative growers by promotional telephone conferences with others who had used the products. Raises a variety of communications issues and introduces diffusion of innovation concepts.
Authors :: Benson P. Shapiro, Anne T. Pigneri, Roy H. Schoeman
Swot Analysis of "CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division" written by Benson P. Shapiro, Anne T. Pigneri, Roy H. Schoeman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Geigy Ciba facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customers and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing,
geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Geigy Ciba, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Geigy Ciba 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Geigy Ciba
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 Geigy Ciba
Strengths CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Geigy Ciba in CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division Harvard Business Review case study are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Geigy Ciba 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Geigy Ciba is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Geigy Ciba 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 Geigy Ciba in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Geigy Ciba has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Geigy Ciba to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Geigy Ciba 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Geigy Ciba in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Geigy Ciba is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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.
Organizational Resilience of Geigy Ciba
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Geigy Ciba does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Geigy Ciba is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Benson P. Shapiro, Anne T. Pigneri, Roy H. Schoeman can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Geigy Ciba 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Geigy Ciba is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Geigy Ciba 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division, is just above the industry average. Geigy Ciba 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Geigy Ciba is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Geigy Ciba is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Geigy Ciba supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Geigy Ciba vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Geigy Ciba products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Geigy Ciba needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Geigy Ciba 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Geigy Ciba is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Geigy Ciba needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Geigy Ciba to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benson P. Shapiro, Anne T. Pigneri, Roy H. Schoeman suggests that, Geigy Ciba 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Geigy Ciba 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.
Opportunities CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division | 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Geigy Ciba 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Geigy Ciba to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Geigy Ciba in the consumer business. Now Geigy Ciba can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Geigy Ciba 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Geigy Ciba 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 Geigy Ciba to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Geigy Ciba 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, CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Geigy Ciba 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Geigy Ciba to increase its market reach. Geigy Ciba 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Geigy Ciba has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Geigy Ciba to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division case study. Geigy Ciba can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Geigy Ciba 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Geigy Ciba 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Geigy Ciba can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Geigy Ciba operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Geigy Ciba 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Geigy Ciba 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.
Threats CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division are -
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Geigy Ciba 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
– Geigy Ciba 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.
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 Geigy Ciba in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division, Geigy Ciba 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Geigy Ciba with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Geigy Ciba 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.
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 Geigy Ciba.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Geigy Ciba has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Geigy Ciba 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.
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. Geigy Ciba needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Geigy Ciba
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Geigy Ciba.
Environmental challenges
– Geigy Ciba 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. Geigy Ciba can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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. Geigy Ciba 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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 CIBA-GEIGY Agricultural Division 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 Geigy Ciba needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.