Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun
The performance of Wonderla, the leader in the amusement park industry in South India, for the year 2011/12 could not be better. It grew at 30 per cent with more than one million customers visiting each of its two parks in Kochi and Bangalore. It also completed the development of a three-star hotel in its Bangalore park. Its growth is creating challenges that it has not faced before. The chief executive officer is concerned with the issue of prioritizing investment among its different businesses as the existing amusement parks are growing and new parks are being planned in two new locations. At the same time, effort is required to create demand for the hotel business. The concern extends beyond investment to examining the option of leveraging the brand Wonderla, which stands for "Fun," to its hotel, with attendant implications for that business and for the brand and its image. Author Sanal Kumar Velayudhan is affiliated with the Indian Institute of Management. Author Kochouseph Chittilappilly is affiliated with V-Guard Industries Ltd.
Swot Analysis of "Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun" written by Sanal Kumar Velayudhan, Kochouseph Chittilappilly includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wonderla Parks facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun casestudy better are - – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wonderla Parks, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wonderla Parks 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wonderla Parks
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 Wonderla Parks
Strengths Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wonderla Parks in Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wonderla Parks 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Wonderla Parks digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Wonderla Parks 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
– Wonderla Parks is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wonderla Parks in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wonderla Parks 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Wonderla Parks is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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.
Training and development
– Wonderla Parks has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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.
High brand equity
– Wonderla Parks has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wonderla Parks to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Wonderla Parks has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Wonderla Parks 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 Wonderla Parks 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.
Analytics focus
– Wonderla Parks 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 Sanal Kumar Velayudhan, Kochouseph Chittilappilly 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Wonderla Parks 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Wonderla Parks is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Wonderla Parks needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Wonderla Parks to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wonderla Parks is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Wonderla Parks 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 - Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Wonderla Parks supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Wonderla Parks vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun HBR case study mentions - Wonderla Parks 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Wonderla Parks 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. Wonderla Parks 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Wonderla Parks 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun, in the dynamic environment Wonderla Parks has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Wonderla Parks 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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 Wonderla Parks has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun, is just above the industry average. Wonderla Parks 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.
Opportunities Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun | 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Wonderla Parks can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
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. Wonderla Parks 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. Wonderla Parks 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Wonderla Parks 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, Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wonderla Parks 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wonderla Parks to increase its market reach. Wonderla Parks 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Wonderla Parks 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, Wonderla Parks can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wonderla Parks operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Wonderla Parks can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Wonderla Parks can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wonderla Parks 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Wonderla Parks has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Wonderla Parks to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun case study. Wonderla Parks can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Wonderla Parks 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 Wonderla Parks to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Wonderla Parks can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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.
Threats Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun are -
Increasing wage structure of Wonderla Parks
– 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 Wonderla Parks.
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 Wonderla Parks in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Wonderla Parks.
Regulatory challenges
– Wonderla Parks 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.
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.
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. Wonderla Parks 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Wonderla Parks with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wonderla Parks has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wonderla Parks 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wonderla Parks 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. Wonderla Parks needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wonderla Parks 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Wonderla Parks is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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 Wonder la: A Brand in the Service of Fun 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 Wonderla Parks needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.