Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?
Steve & Barry's grew rapidly in the mid-2000s, transitioning from a chain of small stores selling inexpensive collegiate-branded merchandise near university campuses into a $1 billion mall-based giant selling a wide variety of low-priced, celebrity-endorsed apparel. While the company had a wide following, elements of its growth strategy-potentially exacerbated by economic conditions-contributed to its quick downfall. By 2008 Steve & Barry's had declared bankruptcy, and various private equity firms were investigating whether some or all of the company should be saved. This requires analyzing the underlying business strategy pursued by Steve & Barry's before and after its growth phase and specifically diagnosing the explanations for its failure.
Authors :: Michael Mazzeo, Ariel Shwayder, Sachin Waikar
Swot Analysis of "Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?" written by Michael Mazzeo, Ariel Shwayder, Sachin Waikar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Barry's Steve facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Marketing, Sales, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Barry's Steve, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Barry's Steve 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Barry's Steve
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 Barry's Steve
Strengths Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Barry's Steve in Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Learning organization
- Barry's Steve 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 Barry's Steve is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Barry's Steve has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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.
Organizational Resilience of Barry's Steve
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Barry's Steve does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Barry's Steve in the sector have low bargaining power. Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Barry's Steve to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Barry's Steve is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Barry's Steve 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 Barry's Steve in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Barry's Steve has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Barry's Steve 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
– Barry's Steve 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
– Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Barry's Steve to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Barry's Steve to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Barry's Steve 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Barry's Steve 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Barry's Steve 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. Barry's Steve 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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 Barry's Steve 's lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? HBR case study mentions - Barry's Steve 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael Mazzeo, Ariel Shwayder, Sachin Waikar suggests that, Barry's Steve 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Barry's Steve 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?, in the dynamic environment Barry's Steve has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Barry's Steve has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Barry's Steve is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?, it seems that the employees of Barry's Steve 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Barry's Steve has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?, is just above the industry average. Barry's Steve needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Opportunities Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? | 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Barry's Steve 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Barry's Steve 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Barry's Steve to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Barry's Steve can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Barry's Steve to increase its market reach. Barry's Steve 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Barry's Steve 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, Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Barry's Steve 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Barry's Steve 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Barry's Steve is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Barry's Steve can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Barry's Steve 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. Barry's Steve 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Barry's Steve 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Barry's Steve 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Barry's Steve 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.
Threats Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? are -
Environmental challenges
– Barry's Steve 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. Barry's Steve can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Barry's Steve 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.
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 Barry's Steve.
Regulatory challenges
– Barry's Steve 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Barry's Steve is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Barry's Steve in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Barry's Steve 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.
Increasing wage structure of Barry's Steve
– 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 Barry's Steve.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Barry's Steve 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save?, Barry's Steve 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.
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. Barry's Steve 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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 Steve & Barry's: To Save or Not To Save? 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 Barry's Steve needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
