Disappointed by how poorly his two favorite football teams were playing against each other on a Thursday night in November 2009, Warren Packard considered the other games he could watch. It was late fall and there were college basketball, college football, and hockey games being played. With all of those different options, Packard thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if somebody could just tap me on the shoulder and say, 'you should be watching this game.'" That thought is what sparked the creation of Thuuz Sports. This case covers the evolution of Packard's idea from side project to Thuuz Sports, a start up with the mission of providing fans with personalized sports entertainment. Thuuz, which assigned every game an excitement rating and alerted users about games they would not want to miss, began as a B2C app. When Packard and his team realized that the biggest pain point was with the companies that saw sports as a way to drive interest, Thuuz pivoted and began prioritizing a B2B2C approach. The case explores how Thuuz approached a number of challenges, including running low on cash, developing a pricing model, and positioning its Automated Highlight Reels. As the only businessperson at the company, Packard was very resource constrained, making prioritization of issues and initiatives even more imperative. Students are asked to evaluate the B2C and B2B2C approaches, identify growth opportunities, and recommend how to pursue those opportunities.
Swot Analysis of "Thuuz Sports" written by George Foster, Davina Drabkin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Thuuz Sports facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Thuuz Sports case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Pricing and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Thuuz Sports casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Thuuz Sports case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Thuuz Sports, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Thuuz Sports case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Thuuz Sports
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 Thuuz Sports
Strengths Thuuz Sports | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Thuuz Sports in Thuuz Sports Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Thuuz Sports is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Thuuz Sports 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.
Learning organization
- Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Thuuz Sports Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Thuuz Sports 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Thuuz Sports is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Thuuz Sports are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Thuuz Sports is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Thuuz Sports has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Thuuz Sports to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Thuuz Sports is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Thuuz Sports Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Thuuz Sports has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Thuuz Sports 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Thuuz Sports digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Thuuz Sports 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Thuuz Sports 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Thuuz Sports firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Thuuz Sports to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Thuuz Sports to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Thuuz Sports | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Thuuz Sports are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Thuuz Sports is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Thuuz Sports 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Thuuz Sports, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Thuuz Sports 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, George Foster, Davina Drabkin suggests that, Thuuz Sports 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Thuuz Sports 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 - Thuuz Sports should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Thuuz Sports 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Thuuz Sports HBR case study mentions - Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Thuuz Sports 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.
Opportunities Thuuz Sports | 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 Thuuz Sports are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Thuuz Sports 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.
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. Thuuz Sports can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Thuuz Sports to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Thuuz Sports 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Thuuz Sports can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Thuuz Sports 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. Thuuz Sports can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Developing new processes and practices
– Thuuz Sports 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Thuuz Sports 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. Thuuz Sports can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Thuuz Sports 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Thuuz Sports has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Thuuz Sports to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Thuuz Sports case study. Thuuz Sports can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Thuuz Sports can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Thuuz Sports operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Threats Thuuz Sports External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Thuuz Sports are -
Environmental challenges
– Thuuz Sports 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. Thuuz Sports can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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.
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. Thuuz Sports 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Thuuz Sports, Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports
– 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 Thuuz Sports.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Thuuz Sports has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Thuuz Sports 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.
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 Thuuz Sports.
Regulatory challenges
– Thuuz Sports 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.
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 Thuuz Sports business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Thuuz Sports is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Thuuz Sports 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, Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports .
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 Thuuz Sports in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports 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 Thuuz Sports needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
