The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand?
The case focuses on opportunities and challenges for a traditional, bricks-and-mortar retailer to use the Internet as an added channel. A major implementation issue, which raised a heated debate among retailers, concerns Tesco.com's order fulfilment approach, based on in-store picked (rather than dedicated warehouses). It also insists on how can one make Internet retailing a profit-making story.
Authors :: Enders Albrecht, Tawfik Jelassi, Charles Waldman
Swot Analysis of "The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand?" written by Enders Albrecht, Tawfik Jelassi, Charles Waldman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tesco.com Tesco.com's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customer service, Internet, Operations management and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tesco.com Tesco.com's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tesco.com Tesco.com's
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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's
Strengths The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tesco.com Tesco.com's in The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tesco.com Tesco.com's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's in the sector have low bargaining power. The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tesco.com Tesco.com's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 Enders Albrecht, Tawfik Jelassi, Charles Waldman 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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.
Weaknesses The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tesco.com Tesco.com's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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. Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 - The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand?, in the dynamic environment Tesco.com Tesco.com's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tesco.com Tesco.com's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tesco.com Tesco.com's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Tesco.com Tesco.com's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tesco.com Tesco.com's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tesco.com Tesco.com's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tesco.com Tesco.com's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tesco.com Tesco.com's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Tesco.com Tesco.com's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Opportunities The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? | 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? are -
Loyalty marketing
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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, Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tesco.com Tesco.com's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Tesco.com Tesco.com's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? case study. Tesco.com Tesco.com's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
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. Tesco.com Tesco.com's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
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. Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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. Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tesco.com Tesco.com's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tesco.com Tesco.com's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tesco.com Tesco.com's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand?, Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
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. Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tesco.com Tesco.com's needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tesco.com Tesco.com's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Tesco.com Tesco.com's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tesco.com Tesco.com's is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Tesco.com Tesco.com's 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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 The Tesco.com Experience: Is Success at Hand? 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 Tesco.com Tesco.com's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
