Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
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Case Study Description of Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared
Supplement to case IMD818. Atera Restaurant, New York City, February 2015. Jodi Richard closed the door behind her with a ton of questions. She had just come out of the final meeting with Matthew Lightner, the executive chef of her two-Michelin-star restaurant in lower Manhattan. Matthew had just announced he was quitting to "pursue new opportunities." This was the final straw in a long string of events that had unfolded before her eyes. The departure of the multi-starred chef would leave a huge vacuum in the restaurant's organization. Worse, they has agreed that Matthew's departure would be effective very rapidly, by end of March. The situation was critical: finding a new star chef for a fashionable restaurant in the competitive lower-Manhattan food scene was going to be a huge challenge. Several other crucial questions preoccupied Jodi. Should she just close down the restaurant and rent the space out to somebody else? Should she change the restaurant concept completely, moving to something easier like a sushi restaurant? Was a trip to Japan to find a young ambitious chef an option in that respect? How would the staff feel about the chef's departure? Would they follow the exit sign as well?
Authors :: Benoit Leleux, George Kohlrieser, Ole Borregaard
Swot Analysis of "Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared" written by Benoit Leleux, George Kohlrieser, Ole Borregaard includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Restaurant Chef facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Crisis management, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Leading teams, Marketing, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Restaurant Chef, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Restaurant Chef 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Restaurant Chef
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 Restaurant Chef
Strengths Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Restaurant Chef in Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Restaurant Chef is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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
– Restaurant Chef is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Restaurant Chef
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Restaurant Chef does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Restaurant Chef 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 Restaurant Chef 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 Restaurant Chef 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.
High brand equity
– Restaurant Chef has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Restaurant Chef to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Restaurant Chef in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Restaurant Chef 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 Restaurant Chef is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Restaurant Chef 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
– Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Restaurant Chef to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Restaurant Chef to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Restaurant Chef 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Restaurant Chef 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 Benoit Leleux, George Kohlrieser, Ole Borregaard 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.
Weaknesses Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Restaurant Chef is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Restaurant Chef 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Restaurant Chef 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 - Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Restaurant Chef supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Restaurant Chef 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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 Restaurant Chef has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Restaurant Chef is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Restaurant Chef needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Restaurant Chef to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Restaurant Chef 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. Restaurant Chef 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benoit Leleux, George Kohlrieser, Ole Borregaard suggests that, Restaurant Chef 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Restaurant Chef 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Restaurant Chef 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.
Opportunities Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared | 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Restaurant Chef is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Restaurant Chef 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Restaurant Chef 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Restaurant Chef 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Restaurant Chef can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Restaurant Chef 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. Restaurant Chef 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Restaurant Chef 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.
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. Restaurant Chef can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Restaurant Chef 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.
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. Restaurant Chef can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Restaurant Chef 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Restaurant Chef 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 Restaurant Chef to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Restaurant Chef can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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.
Threats Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared, Restaurant Chef 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 .
Increasing wage structure of Restaurant Chef
– 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 Restaurant Chef.
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 Restaurant Chef in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Restaurant Chef 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Restaurant Chef 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared .
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. Restaurant Chef 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 Restaurant Chef 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 Restaurant Chef business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Restaurant Chef 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Restaurant Chef 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.
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 Restaurant Chef.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Restaurant Chef with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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 Atera NYC (B): Food War Declared 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 Restaurant Chef needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.