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Massachusetts Lottery SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution

Case Study Description of Massachusetts Lottery


This case is accompanied by a Video Short that can be shown in class or included in a digital coursepack. Instructors should consider the timing of making the video available to students, as it may reveal key case details.Describes the role of state lotteries, lottery marketing, and the operation of the Massachusetts State Lottery, including reference to Massachusetts lottery advertising. Highlights the success of state lotteries while also noting growing criticism, particularly of their advertising. Teaching objectives: To consider 1) truth in advertising, 2) the ethics of marketing gambling, and 3) the marketing/public policy interface.

Authors :: N. Craig Smith, John A. Quelch, Ron Lee

Topics :: Sales & Marketing

Tags :: Marketing, Policy, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis

Swot Analysis of "Massachusetts Lottery" written by N. Craig Smith, John A. Quelch, Ron Lee includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lottery Lotteries facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Massachusetts Lottery case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Policy and Sales & Marketing.


Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Massachusetts Lottery casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Massachusetts Lottery


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Massachusetts Lottery case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lottery Lotteries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lottery Lotteries 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 Massachusetts Lottery can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Massachusetts Lottery case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lottery Lotteries
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 Lottery Lotteries




Strengths Massachusetts Lottery | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Lottery Lotteries in Massachusetts Lottery Harvard Business Review case study are -

Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lottery Lotteries digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lottery Lotteries 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Lottery Lotteries has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lottery Lotteries 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.

Learning organization

- Lottery Lotteries 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 Lottery Lotteries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Massachusetts Lottery Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Lottery Lotteries 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Lottery Lotteries in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Innovation driven organization

– Lottery Lotteries is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Massachusetts Lottery Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.

High brand equity

– Lottery Lotteries has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Lottery Lotteries to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Lottery Lotteries 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 lead change in Sales & Marketing field

– Lottery Lotteries 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 Lottery Lotteries 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 Massachusetts Lottery 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

– Lottery Lotteries is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Massachusetts Lottery are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Lottery Lotteries in the sector have low bargaining power. Massachusetts Lottery has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lottery Lotteries to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.






Weaknesses Massachusetts Lottery | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Massachusetts Lottery are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Lottery Lotteries 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.

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 Lottery Lotteries supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Massachusetts Lottery, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Lottery Lotteries vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Massachusetts Lottery, in the dynamic environment Lottery Lotteries has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lottery Lotteries has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Massachusetts Lottery, is just above the industry average. Lottery Lotteries 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.

Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy

– From the instances in the HBR case study Massachusetts Lottery, it seems that the employees of Lottery Lotteries 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.

Skills based hiring

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lottery Lotteries 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Lottery Lotteries 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lottery Lotteries 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. Lottery Lotteries 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Lottery Lotteries, firm in the HBR case study Massachusetts Lottery needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Aligning sales with marketing

– It come across in the case study Massachusetts Lottery 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 Massachusetts Lottery can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lottery Lotteries is planning to shift buying processes online.

Lack of clear differentiation of Lottery Lotteries products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Lottery Lotteries needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.




Opportunities Massachusetts Lottery | 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 Massachusetts Lottery are -

Reconfiguring business model

– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Lottery Lotteries to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lottery Lotteries to increase its market reach. Lottery Lotteries 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Lottery Lotteries 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.

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. Lottery Lotteries can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lottery Lotteries 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 Lottery Lotteries to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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. Lottery Lotteries can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lottery Lotteries 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lottery Lotteries 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lottery Lotteries can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lottery Lotteries 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. Lottery Lotteries 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Lottery Lotteries 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Lottery Lotteries 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Lottery Lotteries can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Massachusetts Lottery 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 Massachusetts Lottery External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Massachusetts Lottery are -

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 Lottery Lotteries.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Lottery Lotteries 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.

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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Lottery Lotteries has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lottery Lotteries 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.

Environmental challenges

– Lottery Lotteries 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. Lottery Lotteries can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.

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 Lottery Lotteries in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lottery Lotteries 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 Massachusetts Lottery .

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Massachusetts Lottery, Lottery Lotteries 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 .

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 Lottery Lotteries business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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. Lottery Lotteries 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. Lottery Lotteries can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Lottery Lotteries is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Lottery Lotteries 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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Massachusetts Lottery 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 Massachusetts Lottery 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 Massachusetts Lottery 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 Massachusetts Lottery 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 Massachusetts Lottery 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 Lottery Lotteries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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