Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values
The case "Mother Earth - Great Design, Great Values" can be used in a Competition and Strategy course to illustrate a firm employing a focused differentiation strategy and to explore the growth and execution strategies employed by the firm. The case also has a specific focus on the bottom of the pyramid and can be used to study sustainability issues in electives pertaining to Corporate Strategy and the Environment and Social Enterprises. Besides this, the case can also be used in entrepreneurship and marketing courses. The case describes the journey of Mother Earth (ME) since its inception as a company that believes in social sustainability and aims at discussing the strategic challenges at the end of 2010. The focus at the beginning was to utilize market mechanisms to create demand for Indian craft both in India and globally. The export markets turned out to be inconsistent in terms of demand and the financial downturn further aggravated matters; hence ME shifted its focus to expand domestically. The focus was now on giving artisanal products a new contemporary identity with better design and increased utility. ME had achieved significant growth over the last couple of years but was yet to turn profitable. With investment from Future Group, the company is poised for rapid expansion in the local market with significant efforts on building the brand ME and what it stands for.
Authors :: Kunal Bhagat, Monisha Nakra, Archana S, P. D. Jose
Swot Analysis of "Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values" written by Kunal Bhagat, Monisha Nakra, Archana S, P. D. Jose includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mother Earth facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social enterprise, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mother Earth, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mother Earth 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mother Earth
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 Mother Earth
Strengths Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mother Earth in Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mother Earth digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mother Earth 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.
Training and development
– Mother Earth has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mother Earth to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mother Earth to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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
– Mother Earth has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mother Earth 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.
Analytics focus
– Mother Earth 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 Kunal Bhagat, Monisha Nakra, Archana S, P. D. Jose 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mother Earth in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mother Earth is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mother Earth in the sector have low bargaining power. Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mother Earth to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Mother Earth
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Mother Earth does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mother Earth 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Mother Earth 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 Mother Earth is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mother Earth is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Mother Earth needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values HBR case study mentions - Mother Earth 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mother Earth 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mother Earth 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. Mother Earth 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mother Earth is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Mother Earth needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mother Earth to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values, it seems that the employees of Mother Earth 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mother Earth 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values, is just above the industry average. Mother Earth 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values | 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values are -
Loyalty marketing
– Mother Earth 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mother Earth can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mother Earth operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mother Earth 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.
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. Mother Earth can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mother Earth can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Strategy & Execution segment.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mother Earth 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Mother Earth 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mother Earth 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mother Earth to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mother Earth to increase its market reach. Mother Earth 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mother Earth 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.
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. Mother Earth can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Mother Earth 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, Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mother Earth has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Mother Earth to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values case study. Mother Earth can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mother Earth 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.
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 Mother Earth business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Mother Earth 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.
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. Mother Earth can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mother Earth has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mother Earth 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.
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. Mother Earth needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mother Earth 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mother Earth 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 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Mother Earth with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mother Earth 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values, Mother Earth 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 .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth: Great Design, Great Values 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 Mother Earth needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.