Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never?
Major League Soccer (MLS) has entered the U.S. "big league" sports arena. This case reviews its first several years. Students must determine the basic business model of MLS in the context of changes in the fan acceptance of soccer in the United States. A comparison should be made with the experience of the North American Soccer League. Students must assess the progress made by MLS in each of its early seasons. Several new (1998) issues for MLS are included for further student discussion. The ultimate question is whether MLS can be successful long-term.
Swot Analysis of "Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never?" written by Stephen A. Greyser, Kirk Goldman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mls Soccer facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mls Soccer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mls Soccer 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mls Soccer
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 Mls Soccer
Strengths Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mls Soccer in Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Mls Soccer
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Mls Soccer 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
– Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mls Soccer to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mls Soccer to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Mls Soccer 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 Mls Soccer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Mls Soccer has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mls Soccer digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mls Soccer 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Mls Soccer 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 Mls Soccer in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mls Soccer 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mls Soccer has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mls Soccer 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 recruit top talent
– Mls Soccer is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mls Soccer is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mls Soccer 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mls Soccer 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.
Weaknesses Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mls Soccer 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. Mls Soccer even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mls Soccer has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Mls Soccer needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stephen A. Greyser, Kirk Goldman suggests that, Mls Soccer 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mls Soccer is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Mls Soccer needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mls Soccer to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mls Soccer 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never?, is just above the industry average. Mls Soccer 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? HBR case study mentions - Mls Soccer 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mls Soccer is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Mls Soccer 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.
Opportunities Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? | 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? are -
Loyalty marketing
– Mls Soccer 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.
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 Mls Soccer in the consumer business. Now Mls Soccer can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Mls Soccer 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. Mls Soccer 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, Mls Soccer 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, Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mls Soccer 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mls Soccer to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mls Soccer 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mls Soccer 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mls Soccer 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 Mls Soccer has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Mls Soccer to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? case study. Mls Soccer can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mls Soccer 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mls Soccer 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 Mls Soccer 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. Mls Soccer can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Mls Soccer can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? are -
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mls Soccer 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 Mls Soccer is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Mls Soccer needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Mls Soccer
– 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 Mls Soccer.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mls Soccer 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Mls Soccer 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 Mls Soccer business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Mls Soccer 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. Mls Soccer can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mls Soccer 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? .
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. Mls Soccer can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Mls Soccer 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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 Major League Soccer--1996-98: Now, Later...Never? 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 Mls Soccer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
