Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership
GOJO Industries, a U.S.-based hand hygiene company, plans to use sustainability as a business strategy in its big hairy audacious goal of reaching one billion people every day by 2020. It has developed a six level framework to embed sustainability throughout every aspect of the company internally and to assess its successes in the following areas: mitigating risk; reducing energy, waste and materials; differentiation; entering new markets; protecting and enhancing brand; and influencing industry standards. The company has a long history of using sustainability to drive innovation and facilitate expansion into new markets and sees sustainability as a key differentiator from its competitors to achieve its goal. In order to so, the company must also consider the importance of employee engagement in order to further embed sustainability and increase the number of people it reaches with its products.
Authors :: Chris Laszlo, Anya Briggs, Jayesh Potdar
Swot Analysis of "Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership" written by Chris Laszlo, Anya Briggs, Jayesh Potdar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sustainability Gojo facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Organizational culture and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sustainability Gojo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sustainability Gojo 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sustainability Gojo
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 Sustainability Gojo
Strengths Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sustainability Gojo in Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Sustainability Gojo is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sustainability Gojo to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sustainability Gojo to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Sustainability Gojo 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 Chris Laszlo, Anya Briggs, Jayesh Potdar 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.
Training and development
– Sustainability Gojo has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sustainability Gojo 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sustainability Gojo 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sustainability Gojo is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sustainability Gojo digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sustainability Gojo 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
– Sustainability Gojo 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sustainability Gojo is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sustainability Gojo in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership, it seems that the employees of Sustainability Gojo 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sustainability Gojo 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 - Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Chris Laszlo, Anya Briggs, Jayesh Potdar suggests that, Sustainability Gojo 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sustainability Gojo 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Sustainability Gojo 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership, is just above the industry average. Sustainability Gojo 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sustainability Gojo 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sustainability Gojo 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership HBR case study mentions - Sustainability Gojo 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership 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 Sustainability Gojo 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership, in the dynamic environment Sustainability Gojo has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sustainability Gojo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership | 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sustainability Gojo 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sustainability Gojo 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sustainability Gojo can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sustainability Gojo operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Sustainability Gojo 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sustainability Gojo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Sustainability Gojo to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership case study. Sustainability Gojo 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 Sustainability Gojo 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 Sustainability Gojo to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sustainability Gojo 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. Sustainability Gojo 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sustainability Gojo in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sustainability Gojo 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sustainability Gojo 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sustainability Gojo 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, Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Sustainability Gojo in the consumer business. Now Sustainability Gojo can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sustainability Gojo 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sustainability Gojo to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sustainability Gojo 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership .
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.
Environmental challenges
– Sustainability Gojo 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. Sustainability Gojo can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution 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 Sustainability Gojo in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sustainability Gojo 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sustainability Gojo with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Sustainability Gojo
– 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 Sustainability Gojo.
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 Sustainability Gojo.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sustainability Gojo 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Sustainability Gojo 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sustainability Gojo is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Sustainability Gojo 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership 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 Gojo Industries: Aiming for Global Sustainability Leadership 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 Sustainability Gojo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
