Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees
Shenzhen-based Sunshine Fashion Co. Ltd "Sunshine" is a Sino-Japanese venture that has grown from mere original equipment manufacturing of cashmere sweaters for export to include retailing, with 220 retail points throughout China. In order to manage its retail operations, it has set up both regional and branch offices to handle stock and to support and monitor its retail points. It has installed an ERP system for tracking its goods and monitoring sales. The implementation of the ERP system has improved the situation. For example, the system has helped Sunshine manage its domestic business considerably through reliable and consistent reporting from the retail points and branch offices. Nonetheless, fraudulent behaviour among employees has cost the retail chain the equivalent of almost 5% of its domestic sales. What more can the management do to control such behaviour and reduce its loss?
Swot Analysis of "Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees" written by Neale O'Connor, Grace Loo includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sunshine Retail facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Ethics, International business, IT and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sunshine Retail, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sunshine Retail
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 Sunshine Retail
Strengths Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sunshine Retail in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Retail in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Technology & Operations segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sunshine Retail digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sunshine Retail 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Sunshine Retail is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Sunshine Retail has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sunshine Retail 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sunshine Retail to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sunshine Retail to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Sunshine Retail has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sunshine Retail to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sunshine Retail is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sunshine Retail is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Retail is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Sunshine Retail products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sunshine Retail needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sunshine Retail 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sunshine Retail is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sunshine Retail is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Technology & Operations 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sunshine Retail 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Neale O'Connor, Grace Loo suggests that, Sunshine Retail 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sunshine Retail 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 - Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees, is just above the industry average. Sunshine Retail needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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 Sunshine Retail has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Sunshine Retail supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sunshine Retail vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees | 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sunshine Retail to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sunshine Retail 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sunshine Retail 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, Sunshine Retail is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sunshine Retail 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sunshine Retail to increase its market reach. Sunshine Retail 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sunshine Retail can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sunshine Retail 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, Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Sunshine Retail 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Retail to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sunshine Retail 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sunshine Retail 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sunshine Retail can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees are -
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. Sunshine Retail 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
– Sunshine Retail 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.
Environmental challenges
– Sunshine Retail 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. Sunshine Retail can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Retail
– 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 Sunshine Retail.
Regulatory challenges
– Sunshine Retail 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sunshine Retail with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sunshine Retail 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sunshine Retail has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sunshine Retail 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sunshine Retail 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees .
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 Sunshine Retail business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Sunshine Retail.
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. Sunshine Retail can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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 Sunshine Fashion: Fraud, Theft and Misbehaviour among Employees 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 Sunshine Retail needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
