The case describes operations at a skiwear design and merchandising company and its supply partner. Introduces production planning for short-life-cycle products with uncertain demand and allows students to analyze a reduced version of the company's production planning problem. In addition, it provides details about information and material flows that allow students to make recommendations for operational improvements, including comparisons between sourcing products in Hong Kong and China.
Swot Analysis of "Sport Obermeyer Ltd." written by Janice H. Hammond, Ananth Raman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Obermeyer Skiwear facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Forecasting, Manufacturing, Supply chain and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sport Obermeyer Ltd. casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sport Obermeyer Ltd.
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Obermeyer Skiwear, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Obermeyer Skiwear
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 Obermeyer Skiwear
Strengths Sport Obermeyer Ltd. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Obermeyer Skiwear in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Obermeyer Skiwear has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Obermeyer Skiwear in the sector have low bargaining power. Sport Obermeyer Ltd. has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Obermeyer Skiwear to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Obermeyer Skiwear is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Organizational Resilience of Obermeyer Skiwear
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Obermeyer Skiwear does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Obermeyer Skiwear is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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.
Analytics focus
– Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Janice H. Hammond, Ananth Raman 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Obermeyer Skiwear is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Sport Obermeyer Ltd. are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Obermeyer Skiwear is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sport Obermeyer Ltd. Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Obermeyer Skiwear digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Weaknesses Sport Obermeyer Ltd. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sport Obermeyer Ltd. are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Obermeyer Skiwear products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Obermeyer Skiwear needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Janice H. Hammond, Ananth Raman suggests that, Obermeyer Skiwear 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, Obermeyer Skiwear 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. Obermeyer Skiwear even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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 Obermeyer Skiwear has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sport Obermeyer Ltd., is just above the industry average. Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Obermeyer Skiwear, firm in the HBR case study Sport Obermeyer Ltd. needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Obermeyer Skiwear is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Sport Obermeyer Ltd. can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Obermeyer Skiwear 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 - Sport Obermeyer Ltd. should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Sport Obermeyer Ltd., in the dynamic environment Obermeyer Skiwear has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Obermeyer Skiwear has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Sport Obermeyer Ltd. | 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. are -
Loyalty marketing
– Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Obermeyer Skiwear has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Obermeyer Skiwear to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Sport Obermeyer Ltd. case study. Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Obermeyer Skiwear to increase its market reach. Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
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 Obermeyer Skiwear in the consumer business. Now Obermeyer Skiwear can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Obermeyer Skiwear can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Obermeyer Skiwear can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Obermeyer Skiwear operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Obermeyer Skiwear can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Obermeyer Skiwear to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Obermeyer Skiwear can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Technology & Operations segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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 Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Threats Sport Obermeyer Ltd. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sport Obermeyer Ltd. are -
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 Obermeyer Skiwear in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Increasing wage structure of Obermeyer Skiwear
– 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 Obermeyer Skiwear.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Obermeyer Skiwear 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Obermeyer Skiwear with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Obermeyer Skiwear needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Obermeyer Skiwear can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Obermeyer Skiwear 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. .
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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 Sport Obermeyer Ltd. 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 Obermeyer Skiwear needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
