Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., the hybrid corn company division of Dupont, has engaged with PEACE (People's Action for Creative Education) to serve the base of the pyramid markets in India. The partnership between Pioneer and PEACE allows Pioneer to distribute its quality seeds to village farmers through PEACE. This is an example of a for-profit/non-profit partnership serving BoP markets. The case provides an inside look at the impact of the Pioneer/PEACE partnership through interviews with Indian farmers using Pioneer's engineered seeds. It also sheds light on the advantages and limitations of the venture's efforts to reduce production and transactional constraints of the Indian farmers.
Swot Analysis of "Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP" written by Ted London includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Peace Pioneer facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Peace Pioneer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Peace Pioneer 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Peace Pioneer
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Peace Pioneer
Strengths Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Peace Pioneer in Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Peace Pioneer 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 Ted London 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Peace Pioneer in the sector have low bargaining power. Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Peace Pioneer to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Peace Pioneer 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Peace Pioneer 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 Peace Pioneer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Peace Pioneer has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Peace Pioneer 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Peace Pioneer is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Peace Pioneer
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Peace Pioneer does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Peace Pioneer digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Peace Pioneer 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Peace Pioneer 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Peace Pioneer 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Peace Pioneer is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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.
Weaknesses Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Peace Pioneer products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Peace Pioneer needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Peace Pioneer is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Peace Pioneer has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Peace Pioneer 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Peace Pioneer 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP, it seems that the employees of Peace Pioneer 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Peace Pioneer is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Peace Pioneer is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Peace Pioneer needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Peace Pioneer to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ted London suggests that, Peace Pioneer 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Peace Pioneer 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Peace Pioneer, firm in the HBR case study Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP | 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP are -
Manufacturing automation
– Peace Pioneer can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Peace Pioneer can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Peace Pioneer 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Peace Pioneer can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Peace Pioneer can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Peace Pioneer can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Peace Pioneer 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Peace Pioneer can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Peace Pioneer to increase its market reach. Peace Pioneer 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, Peace Pioneer 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.
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 Peace Pioneer 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.
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 Peace Pioneer in the consumer business. Now Peace Pioneer can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Peace Pioneer has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Peace Pioneer to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP case study. Peace Pioneer can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Peace Pioneer high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
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.
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 Peace Pioneer in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP, Peace Pioneer may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Peace Pioneer 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Peace Pioneer with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Peace Pioneer.
Environmental challenges
– Peace Pioneer 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. Peace Pioneer can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Peace Pioneer in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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 Peace Pioneer is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Peace Pioneer 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Peace Pioneer 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Global Seeds to Village Farmers: Hearing the Voices at the BoP 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 Peace Pioneer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
