Swot Analysis of "Jurassic Park" written by John A. Quelch includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Jurassic Merchandising facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Jurassic Park case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Jurassic Park casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Jurassic Park case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jurassic Merchandising, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Park can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Jurassic Park case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jurassic Merchandising
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 Jurassic Merchandising
Strengths Jurassic Park | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jurassic Merchandising in Jurassic Park Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Merchandising is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Jurassic Park Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jurassic Merchandising has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jurassic Merchandising 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jurassic Merchandising 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.
High brand equity
– Jurassic Merchandising has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jurassic Merchandising to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Jurassic Merchandising is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Jurassic Park Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Jurassic Park firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jurassic Merchandising to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jurassic Merchandising to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jurassic Merchandising in the sector have low bargaining power. Jurassic Park has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jurassic Merchandising to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Jurassic Merchandising 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 John A. Quelch 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Merchandising in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Park - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jurassic Merchandising is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Jurassic Park 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jurassic Merchandising 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.
Weaknesses Jurassic Park | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jurassic Park are -
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 Jurassic Merchandising supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Jurassic Park, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Jurassic Merchandising vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jurassic Merchandising 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, Jurassic Merchandising 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John A. Quelch suggests that, Jurassic Merchandising 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jurassic Merchandising has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Jurassic Merchandising even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Jurassic Park 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 Jurassic Merchandising has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jurassic Merchandising is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Jurassic Merchandising needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jurassic Merchandising to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Jurassic Park, 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Jurassic Merchandising, firm in the HBR case study Jurassic Park needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jurassic Merchandising 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Jurassic Park, it seems that the employees of Jurassic Merchandising don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Opportunities Jurassic Park | 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 Jurassic Park are -
Loyalty marketing
– Jurassic Merchandising 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
– Jurassic Merchandising 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. Jurassic Merchandising 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. Jurassic Merchandising 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jurassic Merchandising can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jurassic Merchandising to increase its market reach. Jurassic Merchandising will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jurassic Merchandising in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Park - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jurassic Merchandising to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jurassic Merchandising 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jurassic Merchandising has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Jurassic Merchandising to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Jurassic Park case study. Jurassic Merchandising can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Jurassic Merchandising can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Jurassic Park 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.
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. Jurassic Merchandising can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Merchandising to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jurassic Merchandising 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.
Threats Jurassic Park External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Jurassic Park are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jurassic Merchandising 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.
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. Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Merchandising business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Park, Jurassic Merchandising 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 .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Park .
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. Jurassic Merchandising 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.
Increasing wage structure of Jurassic Merchandising
– 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 Jurassic Merchandising.
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 Jurassic Merchandising.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Jurassic Merchandising with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jurassic Merchandising has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jurassic Merchandising 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 Jurassic Park 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 Jurassic Park 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 Jurassic Park 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 Jurassic Park 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 Jurassic Park 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 Jurassic Merchandising needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
