Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
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Case Study Description of Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply
By 2013, Sobey's Inc., one of Canada`s largest food retailers, had initiated a number of programs in order to reduce its environmental footprint and to try to meet the public's expectations that business would address such sustainability issues as waste management, genetically modified products and food safety. At the top of Sobey's agenda was to develop a sustainable seafood strategy. While data collection, metric selection, employee incentives and customer education were important parts of this emerging strategy, a central decision was what products to choose to sell or not to sell. Certain major competitors had announced that they would sell only "certified sustainable" seafood, an approach strongly advocated by well-known environmental organizations. Sobey's, on the other hand, decided that to abandon uncertified seafood would not only hamper its bottom line but also would eliminate its ability to push the very fisheries that needed more guidance towards better practices. Yet, to continue to sell "red zone" seafood was very controversial and could jeopardize Sobey's standing as a leader in sustainable practices - an outcome that could have serious negative consequences in the marketplace. In this context, the vice-president of sustainability had to implement a sustainable seafood strategy by year's end. Author Anthony Goerzen is affiliated with Queen's University.
Swot Analysis of "Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply" written by Anthony Goerzen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sobey's Seafood facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply casestudy better are - – technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sobey's Seafood, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sobey's Seafood
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 Sobey's Seafood
Strengths Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sobey's Seafood in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sobey's Seafood 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.
Learning organization
- Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Seafood is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Sobey's Seafood has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sobey's Seafood to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sobey's Seafood digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sobey's Seafood 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.
Analytics focus
– Sobey's Seafood 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 Anthony Goerzen 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sobey's Seafood is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sobey's Seafood is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Seafood in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Sobey's Seafood is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Sobey's Seafood has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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.
Weaknesses Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply, in the dynamic environment Sobey's Seafood has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sobey's Seafood has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply, is just above the industry average. Sobey's Seafood 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sobey's Seafood is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sobey's Seafood products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sobey's Seafood needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Sobey's Seafood 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Seafood has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Seafood 's lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sobey's Seafood 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 - Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sobey's Seafood 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sobey's Seafood, firm in the HBR case study Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sobey's Seafood 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. Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply | 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply are -
Buying journey improvements
– Sobey's Seafood can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sobey's Seafood to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sobey's Seafood 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sobey's Seafood 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sobey's Seafood can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sobey's Seafood operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sobey's Seafood can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sobey's Seafood 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, Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Sobey's Seafood 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sobey's Seafood is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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.
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. Sobey's Seafood can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Sobey's Seafood can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sobey's Seafood can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sobey's Seafood 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.
Threats Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply are -
Environmental challenges
– Sobey's Seafood 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. Sobey's Seafood can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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. Sobey's Seafood needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Sobey's Seafood 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sobey's Seafood 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sobey's Seafood has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sobey's Seafood 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.
Increasing wage structure of Sobey's Seafood
– 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 Sobey's Seafood.
Regulatory challenges
– Sobey's Seafood 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sobey's Seafood 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 Sobey's Seafood is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sobey's Seafood 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Inc: A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Seafood Supply 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 Sobey's Seafood needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.