Case Study Description of Britannia Industries Ltd.
The CEO of Britannia Industries Ltd, a manufacturer of bakery products, was at a crossroads. Two years earlier, the firm had started providing specially fortified biscuits to small groups of school-going children in selected locations in India. The product offered a step toward addressing the widespread national problem of malnutrition and, unlike corporate philanthropy, this initiative was an extension of what the company was fundamentally good at - making biscuits. After early signs of success, Britannia's CEO faced two challenges. How should Britannia scale up the manufacture and distribution of social products? And, how should the firm develop the social products into a sustainable business?
Authors :: Robert Klassen, Ramasastry Chandrasekhar
Swot Analysis of "Britannia Industries Ltd." written by Robert Klassen, Ramasastry Chandrasekhar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Britannia Biscuits facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Britannia Industries Ltd. case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Growth strategy, Social responsibility and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Britannia Industries Ltd. casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Britannia Industries Ltd.
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Britannia Industries Ltd. case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Britannia Biscuits, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Britannia Biscuits 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Britannia Industries Ltd. case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Britannia Biscuits
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 Britannia Biscuits
Strengths Britannia Industries Ltd. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Britannia Biscuits in Britannia Industries Ltd. Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Britannia Biscuits 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Britannia Biscuits is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Britannia Industries Ltd. Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Britannia Biscuits is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Biscuits
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Britannia Biscuits does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Britannia Biscuits 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Britannia Biscuits digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Britannia Biscuits 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Britannia Biscuits 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 Britannia Biscuits in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Britannia Biscuits is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Britannia Industries Ltd. 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.
High brand equity
– Britannia Biscuits has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Britannia Biscuits to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Britannia Biscuits in the sector have low bargaining power. Britannia Industries Ltd. has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Britannia Biscuits to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Britannia Industries Ltd. 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Britannia Biscuits in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Britannia Industries Ltd. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Britannia Industries Ltd. are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Biscuits has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Britannia Industries Ltd., it seems that the employees of Britannia Biscuits 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Britannia Biscuits 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Britannia Biscuits is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Britannia Biscuits products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Britannia Biscuits needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Britannia Industries Ltd., is just above the industry average. Britannia Biscuits 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Biscuits 's lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Britannia Biscuits 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Britannia Industries Ltd., in the dynamic environment Britannia Biscuits has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Britannia Biscuits has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Britannia Biscuits 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. Britannia Biscuits 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Britannia Industries Ltd. HBR case study mentions - Britannia Biscuits 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.
Opportunities Britannia Industries Ltd. | 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Britannia Biscuits 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, Britannia Industries Ltd., to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Britannia Biscuits 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Britannia Biscuits to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Britannia Biscuits 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Britannia Biscuits 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 Britannia Biscuits to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Britannia Biscuits 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. Britannia Biscuits 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, Britannia Biscuits is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Britannia Industries Ltd. 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Britannia Biscuits 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Britannia Biscuits to increase its market reach. Britannia Biscuits 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Britannia Biscuits in the consumer business. Now Britannia Biscuits can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Britannia Biscuits can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Britannia Biscuits can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Britannia Biscuits has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Britannia Biscuits to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Britannia Industries Ltd. case study. Britannia Biscuits can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Britannia Industries Ltd. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Britannia Industries Ltd. are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Britannia Biscuits 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.
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. Britannia Biscuits can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Britannia Biscuits in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Britannia Industries Ltd., Britannia Biscuits 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Britannia Biscuits with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Britannia Biscuits 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. Britannia Biscuits can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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. Britannia Biscuits 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Britannia Biscuits 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.
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.
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 Britannia Biscuits.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Britannia Biscuits 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 Britannia Biscuits business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Britannia Biscuits 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Industries Ltd. 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 Britannia Biscuits needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.