Swot Analysis of "Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video" written by W. Earl Sasser Jr., Christopher W.L. Hart, Lucy N. Lytle includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Au Bon facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Human resource management and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Au Bon, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Au Bon 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Au Bon
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Au Bon
Strengths Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Au Bon in Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Au Bon is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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 Technology & Operations industry
– Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Au Bon to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Au Bon to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Au Bon 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Au Bon has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Au Bon 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.
Analytics focus
– Au Bon 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 W. Earl Sasser Jr., Christopher W.L. Hart, Lucy N. Lytle 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.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Au Bon 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 Au Bon in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Au Bon
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Au Bon does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Au Bon is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Au Bon in the sector have low bargaining power. Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Au Bon to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Au Bon 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Au Bon 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 Au Bon is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Au Bon products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Au Bon needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Au Bon has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Au Bon 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video, it seems that the employees of Au Bon don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Need for greater diversity
– Au Bon 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Au Bon 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video, in the dynamic environment Au Bon has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Au Bon has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, W. Earl Sasser Jr., Christopher W.L. Hart, Lucy N. Lytle suggests that, Au Bon 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Au Bon 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. Au Bon 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Au Bon 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Au Bon is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video | 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video are -
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 Au Bon in the consumer business. Now Au Bon can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Au Bon in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Technology & Operations segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Au Bon 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 Technology & Operations segment.
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 Au Bon 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Au Bon 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Au Bon 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Au Bon to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Au Bon 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 Au Bon to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Au Bon can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Au Bon 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. Au Bon 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Au Bon 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Au Bon can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Au Bon has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Au Bon to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video case study. Au Bon can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Au Bon to increase its market reach. Au Bon 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.
Threats Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video are -
Environmental challenges
– Au Bon 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. Au Bon can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Au Bon with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Au Bon has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Au Bon needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Technology & Operations 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Au Bon is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Au Bon 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Au Bon 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 Au Bon business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Au Bon 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 Technology & Operations industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Au Bon in the Technology & Operations industry. The Technology & Operations 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.
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. Au Bon will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Au Bon 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.
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 Au Bon.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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 Au Bon Pain: Interviews with Ron Shaich and Len Schlesinger, Video 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 Au Bon needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.