Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement
This case describes the brand-building efforts of Harley-Davidson and some of the programs the company has used to maintain a dialogue with consumers. The case discussion is anticipated to focus on the causes, consequences, and threats to almost fanatical brand loyalty exhibited by Harley owners.
Swot Analysis of "Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement" written by Paul W. Farris, Eric A. Gregg includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Harley Davidson facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customers and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Harley Davidson, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Harley Davidson 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Harley Davidson
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 Harley Davidson
Strengths Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Harley Davidson in Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Harley Davidson is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Harley Davidson 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 Paul W. Farris, Eric A. Gregg 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Harley Davidson is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Harley Davidson is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Harley Davidson 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Harley Davidson has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Harley Davidson 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Harley Davidson to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Harley Davidson to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Harley Davidson has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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 Harley Davidson 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.
Organizational Resilience of Harley Davidson
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Harley Davidson does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Harley Davidson has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Harley Davidson to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Harley Davidson 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement are -
Need for greater diversity
– Harley Davidson 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement, 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement, is just above the industry average. Harley Davidson needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Harley Davidson supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Harley Davidson vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement, it seems that the employees of Harley Davidson 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Harley Davidson products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Harley Davidson needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Harley Davidson 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Harley Davidson 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement HBR case study mentions - Harley Davidson 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Harley Davidson is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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, Harley Davidson 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. Harley Davidson 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.
Opportunities Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement | 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Harley Davidson 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.
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 Harley Davidson in the consumer business. Now Harley Davidson can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Harley Davidson is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Harley Davidson 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
– Harley Davidson 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Harley Davidson can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Strategy & Execution segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Harley Davidson 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 Harley Davidson to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Harley Davidson 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Harley Davidson to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Harley Davidson 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.
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 Harley Davidson 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Harley Davidson has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Harley Davidson to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement case study. Harley Davidson can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Harley Davidson can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Harley Davidson 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.
Threats Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Harley Davidson has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Harley Davidson 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.
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 Harley Davidson business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Harley Davidson is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Harley Davidson 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 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. Harley Davidson needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Harley Davidson can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement, Harley Davidson 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 .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Harley Davidson 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.
Increasing wage structure of Harley Davidson
– 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 Harley Davidson.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Harley Davidson 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 Harley Davidson in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Harley Davidson 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. Harley Davidson can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Harley Davidson 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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 Harley-Davidson: Building a Brand Through Consumer Engagement 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 Harley Davidson needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
