Case Study Description of Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues
Focuses on the impacts for Olympic sponsor companies of the bribery allegations related to the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee's successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games. The spread of the scandal to the International Olympic Committee board members and the recent bids of other cities threaten the value of Olympic sponsorship to key companies involved.
Swot Analysis of "Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues" written by Stephen A. Greyser, John A. Clendenin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Olympic Sponsorship facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Crisis management, Customers and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Olympic Sponsorship, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Olympic Sponsorship 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Olympic Sponsorship
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 Olympic Sponsorship
Strengths Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Olympic Sponsorship in Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Olympic Sponsorship 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Olympic Sponsorship in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Olympic Sponsorship has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Olympic Sponsorship in the sector have low bargaining power. Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Olympic Sponsorship to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Olympic Sponsorship 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Olympic Sponsorship has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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
– Olympic Sponsorship is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Olympic Sponsorship digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Olympic Sponsorship has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Organizational Resilience of Olympic Sponsorship
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Olympic Sponsorship does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Olympic Sponsorship is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Olympic Sponsorship 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 Stephen A. Greyser, John A. Clendenin 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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.
Weaknesses Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues HBR case study mentions - Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues, in the dynamic environment Olympic Sponsorship has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Olympic Sponsorship has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues, is just above the industry average. Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Olympic Sponsorship is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Olympic Sponsorship needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Olympic Sponsorship to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stephen A. Greyser, John A. Clendenin suggests that, Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Olympic Sponsorship is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Olympic Sponsorship supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Olympic Sponsorship vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues, it seems that the employees of Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Olympic Sponsorship 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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 Olympic Sponsorship has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues | 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Olympic Sponsorship can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Olympic Sponsorship operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Olympic Sponsorship is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Olympic Sponsorship 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 Olympic Sponsorship to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Olympic Sponsorship can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Olympic Sponsorship 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Olympic Sponsorship to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Olympic Sponsorship can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Olympic Sponsorship 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. Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Olympic Sponsorship 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.
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 Olympic Sponsorship 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 Olympic Sponsorship to increase its market reach. Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Threats Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Olympic Sponsorship high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Olympic Sponsorship has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Olympic Sponsorship 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Olympic Sponsorship 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.
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 Olympic Sponsorship business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Olympic Sponsorship
– 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 Olympic Sponsorship.
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 Olympic Sponsorship.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Olympic Sponsorship 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues .
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Olympic Sponsorship with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Olympic Sponsorship 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. Olympic Sponsorship can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Olympic Sponsorship 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues, Olympic Sponsorship 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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 Tarnished Rings?: Olympic Games Sponsorship Issues 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 Olympic Sponsorship needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
