Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century
Yosef Akhtman, CEO and cofounder of Gamaya, and Igor Ivanov, Gamaya's business development manager were elated at the latest news coming from Brazil. After a year of field tests, things were finally falling into place and Gamaya was now able to demonstrate credibly the contributions its drone-born miniaturized hyperspectral cameras could bring to local sugar cane farmers. It was not only the hardware that made Gamaya so special, but also the data analytics that converted the rich data images into valuable crop management information that could immediately be converted into field actions. The client in this case was also an investor in the venture and, as one of the most visible and acclaimed Swiss entrepreneurs, his validation was worth a lot to the company, and that could be a turning point for the company. Even though it had won prizes in venture competitions and research grants from the University lab, this was the first significant investment from a professional investor, and Yosef knew it would open doors for further funding rounds. Questions abounded though: Should they continue to focus on sugar cane farmers or should they move to other crops and geographies? Was the business model appropriate for their activities? How long would it take for the delivery medium, various drones at this point, to be replaced by mini-satellites offering almost real-time monitoring on a larger scale?
Swot Analysis of "Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century" written by Benoit Leleux, Jung Eung Park includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Gamaya Yosef facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Organizational culture, Technology and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century casestudy better are - – wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gamaya Yosef, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gamaya Yosef 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gamaya Yosef
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 Gamaya Yosef
Strengths Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gamaya Yosef in Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Gamaya Yosef has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gamaya Yosef are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gamaya Yosef digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gamaya Yosef 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Gamaya Yosef is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gamaya Yosef to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gamaya Yosef to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gamaya Yosef is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Gamaya Yosef 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 Gamaya Yosef in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Gamaya Yosef 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, Jung Eung Park 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gamaya Yosef 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gamaya Yosef 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gamaya Yosef in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gamaya Yosef is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Gamaya Yosef needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gamaya Yosef to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Gamaya Yosef 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benoit Leleux, Jung Eung Park suggests that, Gamaya Yosef 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Gamaya Yosef is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gamaya Yosef 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. Gamaya Yosef 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 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 Gamaya Yosef supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gamaya Yosef 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya Yosef has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century, it seems that the employees of Gamaya Yosef 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century, in the dynamic environment Gamaya Yosef has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gamaya Yosef has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gamaya Yosef products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gamaya Yosef needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gamaya Yosef is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century | 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gamaya Yosef 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gamaya Yosef to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gamaya Yosef to increase its market reach. Gamaya Yosef 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.
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. Gamaya Yosef can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gamaya Yosef 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, Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gamaya Yosef 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gamaya Yosef in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Gamaya Yosef 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gamaya Yosef is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya Yosef 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. Gamaya Yosef 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. Gamaya Yosef 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Gamaya Yosef can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gamaya Yosef 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 Gamaya Yosef to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Gamaya Yosef 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.
Threats Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century are -
Regulatory challenges
– Gamaya Yosef 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gamaya Yosef 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.
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 Gamaya Yosef in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Gamaya Yosef can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Gamaya Yosef business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Gamaya Yosef 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Gamaya Yosef with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gamaya Yosef is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Gamaya Yosef.
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.
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. Gamaya Yosef needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gamaya Yosef 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, Gamaya Yosef 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya: Taking Farming into the 21st Century 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 Gamaya Yosef needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
