Case Study Description of Parentune.com: Partnering Parents
In June 2016, the founder and chief executive officer of Parentune.com, a rapidly growing online parents' community based in Gurgaon, India, was feeling the pressure of keeping his parenting support service relevant to the changing needs of millennial parents. Parentune.com supported parents at all stages of parenting by networking parents and experts. Since Parentune.com launched in November 2012, more than one million parents had become members of the community, with another 6,000 added every month. Parentune.com was trusted by parents for its personalized, validated, and state-of-the-art parenting resources. However, many similar platforms began entering the niche segment of digital parenting services, capitalizing on growing Internet reach and social media penetration. In the wake of evolving parenting needs and mounting competition from look-alike platforms, Parentune.com needed to evaluate its plan for continuous improvement in its service delivery. Anupama Prashar is affiliated with Management Development Institute.
Swot Analysis of "Parentune.com: Partnering Parents" written by Anupama Prashar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Parentune.com Parents facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Parentune.com: Partnering Parents case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Internet and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Parentune.com: Partnering Parents casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Parentune.com: Partnering Parents
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Parentune.com: Partnering Parents case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Parentune.com Parents, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Parentune.com Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Parentune.com: Partnering Parents case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Parentune.com Parents
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 Parentune.com Parents
Strengths Parentune.com: Partnering Parents | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Parentune.com Parents in Parentune.com: Partnering Parents Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Parentune.com Parents is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Parentune.com: Partnering Parents are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Parentune.com Parents has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Parentune.com Parents 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Parentune.com Parents in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Parentune.com Parents 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 Anupama Prashar 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Parentune.com Parents is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Parentune.com Parents 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 Parentune.com Parents is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Parentune.com: Partnering Parents Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Parentune.com Parents is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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.
Training and development
– Parentune.com Parents has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Parentune.com Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Parentune.com Parents in the sector have low bargaining power. Parentune.com: Partnering Parents has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Parentune.com Parents to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Parentune.com Parents 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Parentune.com: Partnering Parents firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Parentune.com Parents to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Parentune.com Parents to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Parentune.com: Partnering Parents | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Parentune.com: Partnering Parents are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Parentune.com Parents 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, Anupama Prashar suggests that, Parentune.com Parents 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 Parentune.com Parents supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Parentune.com: Partnering Parents, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Parentune.com Parents vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Parentune.com Parents products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Parentune.com Parents needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Parentune.com: Partnering Parents, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Parentune.com: Partnering Parents, it seems that the employees of Parentune.com Parents 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Parentune.com Parents is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Parentune.com: Partnering Parents can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Parentune.com: Partnering Parents, in the dynamic environment Parentune.com Parents has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Parentune.com Parents has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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 Parentune.com Parents has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Parentune.com Parents 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. Parentune.com Parents 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Parentune.com: Partnering Parents, is just above the industry average. Parentune.com Parents 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.
Opportunities Parentune.com: Partnering Parents | 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Parentune.com Parents can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Parentune.com Parents can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Parentune.com Parents 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.
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. Parentune.com Parents 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. Parentune.com Parents 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.
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. Parentune.com Parents can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Parentune.com Parents 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Parentune.com Parents 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Parentune.com Parents 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Parentune.com Parents 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Parentune.com Parents can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Parentune.com Parents can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Parentune.com Parents operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
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 Parentune.com Parents in the consumer business. Now Parentune.com Parents can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Parentune.com Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Parentune.com Parents to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Parentune.com: Partnering Parents External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Parentune.com: Partnering Parents are -
Environmental challenges
– Parentune.com Parents 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. Parentune.com Parents can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Parentune.com Parents has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Parentune.com Parents 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Parentune.com Parents can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Parentune.com Parents is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Parentune.com Parents 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Parentune.com Parents 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.
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 Parentune.com Parents in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Parentune.com Parents.
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 Parentune.com Parents business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Parentune.com Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents .
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. Parentune.com Parents 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Parentune.com: Partnering Parents, Parentune.com Parents may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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 Parentune.com: Partnering Parents 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 Parentune.com Parents needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
