Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response
The nonprofit performing arts industry in America, along with many performing arts organizations around the world, are facing crises on a variety of fronts. Accordingly, arts organizations must learn new ways to attract the resources they need to sustain their mission and quality. Arts managers must improve their skills in increasing and broadening their audience base, improving accessibility to various art forms, and learning how to better meet the needs of specific audience segments and contributors. To accomplish this, they must develop a better understanding of their own business and of the interests, attitudes, and motivations of their customers. They must professionalize their marketing and management skills and learn to be accountable to all their publics: their artists, their funders, and their audiences. Then they can create offerings, services, and messages to which the target audience will enthusiastically respond, without compromising their artistic integrity.
Swot Analysis of "Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response" written by Joanne Scheff, Philip Kotler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Arts Audience facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Arts Audience, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Arts Audience 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Arts Audience
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 Arts Audience
Strengths Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Arts Audience in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Arts Audience has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Arts Audience 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response - 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 Arts Audience
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Arts Audience does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Arts Audience to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Arts Audience to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Arts Audience is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Arts Audience 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Arts Audience is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Arts Audience 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 Arts Audience is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Arts Audience digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Arts Audience 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Arts Audience is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Arts Audience is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Arts Audience in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Arts Audience 's lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response HBR case study mentions - Arts Audience takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Arts Audience supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Arts Audience vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response, it seems that the employees of Arts Audience 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Arts Audience 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, Arts Audience 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Arts Audience is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response, in the dynamic environment Arts Audience has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Arts Audience has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 Arts Audience has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Arts Audience is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Joanne Scheff, Philip Kotler suggests that, Arts Audience 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.
Opportunities Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response | 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response are -
Loyalty marketing
– Arts Audience 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Arts Audience is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Arts Audience 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, Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Arts Audience 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Arts Audience has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Arts Audience to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response case study. Arts Audience 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. Arts Audience can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Arts Audience can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Arts Audience operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Arts Audience 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Arts Audience 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 Arts Audience to increase its market reach. Arts Audience 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Arts Audience can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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.
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 Arts Audience in the consumer business. Now Arts Audience can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Arts Audience 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 Arts Audience to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response are -
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 Arts Audience business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response, Arts Audience 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, Arts Audience 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response .
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Arts Audience 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.
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. Arts Audience needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Arts Audience 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.
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. Arts Audience 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Arts Audience can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Arts Audience 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Arts Audience is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Arts Audience 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. Arts Audience can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Arts Audience has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Arts Audience 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response 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 Arts Audience needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
