Analyzes the strategy and management of Environmental Defense, a leading environmental advocacy group, emphasizing the group's activity in the energy and agribusiness industries. From a strategy formulation standpoint, the case encourages students to think of the competitive landscape that Environmental Defense confronts: the competition among advocacy groups for funding, media attention, and talented staff. Also useful to executives in businesses affected by social concerns about the environment, who will deepen their understanding of the motives and perspectives of environmental advocates and the opportunities for firms and environmental groups to work together to reach mutually beneficial results.
Swot Analysis of "Environmental Defense" written by Forest Reinhardt includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Environmental Defense facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Environmental Defense case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social responsibility, Strategy execution, Sustainability and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Environmental Defense casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Environmental Defense
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Environmental Defense case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Environmental Defense, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Environmental Defense case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Environmental Defense
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 Environmental Defense
Strengths Environmental Defense | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Environmental Defense in Environmental Defense Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Environmental Defense 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
– Environmental Defense 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 Forest Reinhardt 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.
Training and development
– Environmental Defense has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Environmental Defense 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Environmental Defense is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Environmental Defense are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Environmental Defense firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Environmental Defense to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Environmental Defense to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Environmental Defense has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Environmental Defense 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Environmental Defense in the sector have low bargaining power. Environmental Defense has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Environmental Defense to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Environmental Defense 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Environmental Defense 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.
Learning organization
- Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Environmental Defense Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Environmental Defense is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Environmental Defense Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Environmental Defense | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Environmental Defense are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Environmental Defense 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 - Environmental Defense should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Environmental Defense, 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Forest Reinhardt suggests that, Environmental Defense 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.
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 Environmental Defense supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Environmental Defense, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Environmental Defense vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Environmental Defense, it seems that the employees of Environmental Defense 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Environmental Defense 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Environmental Defense products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Environmental Defense needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Environmental Defense HBR case study mentions - Environmental Defense 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Environmental Defense is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Environmental Defense has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Environmental Defense has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Opportunities Environmental Defense | 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 Environmental Defense are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Environmental Defense 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.
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. Environmental Defense 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. Environmental Defense 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Environmental Defense 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, Environmental Defense, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Environmental Defense 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Environmental Defense is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Environmental Defense 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Environmental Defense to increase its market reach. Environmental Defense 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. Environmental Defense can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Environmental Defense can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Environmental Defense 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Environmental Defense can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Environmental Defense to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Environmental Defense can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Environmental Defense in the consumer business. Now Environmental Defense can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Environmental Defense are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Environmental Defense 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Environmental Defense 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.
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 Environmental Defense business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Environmental Defense 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Environmental Defense, Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Environmental Defense 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.
Environmental challenges
– Environmental Defense 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. Environmental Defense 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. Environmental Defense needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Environmental Defense has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Environmental Defense 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.
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.
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 Environmental Defense.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense 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 Environmental Defense needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.