The co-founder and president of an environmentally friendly moving supply company faces the challenge of expanding his company's brand. The company, which provides plastic, reusable moving bins and other moving supplies, has branded itself as providing a convenient, affordable and eco-friendly alternative to cardboard moving boxes. The company can expand by setting up additional corporate stores or by selling individual franchises. The co-founder and president also contemplates focusing his efforts on dominating and revolutionizing the Canadian moving industry. He also remains open to the possibility of eventually selling the company to a larger organization. In considering all options, he wants to sustain the integrity and success of the brand he has built and to ensure that any future expansion maintains his commitment to providing consumers with value, high quality and superior customer service. Author Michael Valente is affiliated with York University.
Swot Analysis of "FROGBOX" written by Michael Valente, Paul Bigus includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Moving Friendly facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in FROGBOX case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the FROGBOX casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in FROGBOX case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Moving Friendly, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Moving Friendly 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 FROGBOX can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in FROGBOX case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Moving Friendly
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 Moving Friendly
Strengths FROGBOX | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Moving Friendly in FROGBOX Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Moving Friendly 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 Moving Friendly in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Moving Friendly has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Moving Friendly 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Moving Friendly 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 FROGBOX - 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 Moving Friendly digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Moving Friendly 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Moving Friendly in the sector have low bargaining power. FROGBOX has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Moving Friendly to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Moving Friendly in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Moving Friendly 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 FROGBOX HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management
– Moving Friendly is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the FROGBOX 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
– Moving Friendly is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in FROGBOX Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Moving Friendly is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in FROGBOX 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Moving Friendly is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the FROGBOX are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses FROGBOX | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of FROGBOX are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Moving Friendly 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Moving Friendly 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Moving Friendly 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael Valente, Paul Bigus suggests that, Moving Friendly is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study FROGBOX 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 Moving Friendly 's lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Moving Friendly 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 - FROGBOX 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 FROGBOX, in the dynamic environment Moving Friendly has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Moving Friendly has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Moving Friendly 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study FROGBOX, is just above the industry average. Moving Friendly 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.
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 Moving Friendly supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - FROGBOX, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Moving Friendly vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the FROGBOX 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 Moving Friendly has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities FROGBOX | 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 FROGBOX are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Moving Friendly has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Moving Friendly to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the FROGBOX case study. Moving Friendly can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Moving Friendly can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. FROGBOX 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Moving Friendly 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Moving Friendly 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.
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. Moving Friendly can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Moving Friendly is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. FROGBOX 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Moving Friendly can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Moving Friendly 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
– Moving Friendly 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 FROGBOX - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Moving Friendly to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Moving Friendly can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Moving Friendly operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Moving Friendly to increase its market reach. Moving Friendly will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Moving Friendly 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.
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. Moving Friendly 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. Moving Friendly 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.
Threats FROGBOX External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study FROGBOX are -
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 Moving Friendly in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Moving Friendly 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Moving Friendly is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Moving Friendly with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study FROGBOX, Moving Friendly 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Moving Friendly has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Moving Friendly 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Moving Friendly 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 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. Moving Friendly needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Moving Friendly 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. Moving Friendly can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Increasing wage structure of Moving Friendly
– 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 Moving Friendly.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Moving Friendly 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Moving Friendly 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of FROGBOX 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 FROGBOX 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 FROGBOX 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 FROGBOX 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 FROGBOX 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 Moving Friendly needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
