Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise
In summer 2008, the Nashville Predators' management team was considering the strategy behind marketing the team. They thought it prudent to investigate the feasibility of opportunities in other hockey markets throughout North America, should a new owner want to move the team. Management had to consider both financial returns and on-ice success. They needed to create a comprehensive strategy, starting from a recommended location, and moving through specific recommendations on promotions, pricing and customer focus. To help create their strategy, the management team performed the following: developed a comprehensive tactical marketing plan, including income projections; identified the marketing challenges of operating in very different markets; recognized that the choice of a city location largely constrained the remaining decisions and tactics. Using this information, the management team could now identify their next steps, and what future plans should include.
Swot Analysis of "Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise" written by June Cotte, Jamie Duncan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Nashville Predators facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Operations management and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nashville Predators, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nashville Predators 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nashville Predators
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 Nashville Predators
Strengths Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nashville Predators in Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nashville Predators has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nashville Predators 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Nashville Predators 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 Nashville Predators in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Nashville Predators is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Nashville Predators 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nashville Predators digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nashville Predators 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.
Training and development
– Nashville Predators has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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)
– Nashville Predators 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Nashville Predators in the sector have low bargaining power. Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nashville Predators to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Nashville Predators 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 June Cotte, Jamie Duncan 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nashville Predators in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Nashville Predators has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Nashville Predators to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Nashville Predators is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nashville Predators has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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 Nashville Predators has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise, is just above the industry average. Nashville Predators 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nashville Predators has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Nashville Predators 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Nashville Predators, firm in the HBR case study Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Nashville Predators supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Nashville Predators vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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 Nashville Predators 's lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Nashville Predators 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise HBR case study mentions - Nashville Predators 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.
Opportunities Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise | 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise are -
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. Nashville Predators can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nashville Predators can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Nashville Predators can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Nashville Predators 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, Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Nashville Predators to increase its market reach. Nashville Predators 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
– Nashville Predators 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, Nashville Predators can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Nashville Predators 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, Nashville Predators is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nashville Predators 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nashville Predators 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.
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. Nashville Predators can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nashville Predators has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Nashville Predators to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise case study. Nashville Predators can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nashville Predators 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nashville Predators to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nashville Predators is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Nashville Predators business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nashville Predators 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.
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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Nashville Predators 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 Nashville Predators.
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. Nashville Predators can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Nashville Predators
– 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 Nashville Predators.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nashville Predators in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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. Nashville Predators 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nashville Predators 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Nashville Predators with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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 Nashville Predators: Marketing Strategy for an NHL Franchise 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 Nashville Predators needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.