A Giant Among Women SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Technology & Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of A Giant Among Women
Few CEOs successfully manage the evolution of their companies from OEM outsourcer to branded manufacturer to expert consumer marketer as well as Tony Lo, CEO of Giant Manufacturing Co. Ltd., now the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world. In the mid-1980s, Giant produced over a million bikes per year with the Giant brand on fewer than 15% of them; by 2008, Giant was producing 6.4 million bicycles with 70% carrying the Giant brand. And in 2010, the transition was still in-process as CEO Lo experimented with a new business model for women cyclists in Taiwan and globally--leveraging some of Giant's lessons learned and challenging others. The case explores Giant's historical evolution from OEM outsourcer to branded manufacturer, which relied heavily on Giant's forward integration into the construction of a world-class, global retail organization. Giant's ability to understand the customer and move him/her up-market has driven both sales growth and profitability (e.g., average sales prices in 2006, 2007, and 2008 were $325, $345, and $360 respectively). That sets the stage for Lo's latest challenge: a realization that his products were not meeting the needs of women customers (including particularly his wife). As a result, Lo commissioned his CFO Bonnie Tu to open the first all-women's bicycle store in Taipei (owned by corporate, not the traditional retail organization), and charged her not only with figuring out the needs of women customers, but also mandating that she turn a profit. "Because your only customers are women, if you don't know how to sell to them, you're out of business -period. So you experiment for survival," explained Lo. The case concludes by examining the company's continuing integration into retail stores, looking closely at the Liv/giant pilot and the surprising business model that it developed.
Authors :: Willy Shih, Ethan S. Bernstein, Maly Hout Bernstein, Jyun-Cheng Wang
Swot Analysis of "A Giant Among Women" written by Willy Shih, Ethan S. Bernstein, Maly Hout Bernstein, Jyun-Cheng Wang includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Giant's Lo facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in A Giant Among Women case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customers, Market research, Operations management, Product development, Psychology, Strategy execution and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the A Giant Among Women casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of A Giant Among Women
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in A Giant Among Women case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Giant's Lo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Giant's Lo 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 A Giant Among Women can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in A Giant Among Women case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Giant's Lo
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 Giant's Lo
Strengths A Giant Among Women | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Giant's Lo in A Giant Among Women Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Giant's Lo has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in A Giant Among Women 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Giant's Lo has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Giant's Lo 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Giant's Lo is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the A Giant Among Women are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Giant's Lo in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Technology & Operations field
– Giant's Lo 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 Giant's Lo in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Giant's Lo is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Giant's Lo is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in A Giant Among Women 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.
Learning organization
- Giant's Lo 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 Giant's Lo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in A Giant Among Women Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Giant's Lo 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 A Giant Among Women - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Giant's Lo 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 A Giant Among Women HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Giant's Lo has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Giant's Lo to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses A Giant Among Women | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of A Giant Among Women are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Giant's Lo 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 A Giant Among Women, is just above the industry average. Giant's Lo 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 A Giant Among Women 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 Giant's Lo has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As A Giant Among Women HBR case study mentions - Giant's Lo takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Giant's Lo is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Technology & Operations segment. Giant's Lo needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Giant's Lo to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Giant's Lo is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study A Giant Among Women can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study A Giant Among Women, it seems that the employees of Giant's Lo 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Giant's Lo products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Giant's Lo 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, Willy Shih, Ethan S. Bernstein, Maly Hout Bernstein, Jyun-Cheng Wang suggests that, Giant's Lo 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study A Giant Among Women 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 A Giant Among Women can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Giant's Lo is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study A Giant Among Women has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Giant's Lo 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities A Giant Among Women | 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 A Giant Among Women are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Giant's Lo 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Giant's Lo 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, A Giant Among Women, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Giant's Lo can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Giant's Lo 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Giant's Lo 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Giant's Lo to increase its market reach. Giant's Lo 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.
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. Giant's Lo 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. Giant's Lo 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Giant's Lo 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 A Giant Among Women - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Giant's Lo to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Giant's Lo 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Giant's Lo 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Giant's Lo 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Giant's Lo 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 Giant's Lo 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 Giant's Lo to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats A Giant Among Women External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study A Giant Among Women are -
Environmental challenges
– Giant's Lo 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. Giant's Lo can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Giant's Lo 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Giant's Lo has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Technology & Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Giant's Lo 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.
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. Giant's Lo 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.
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. Giant's Lo can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Giant's Lo
– 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 Giant's Lo.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Giant's Lo 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.
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. Giant's Lo needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Giant's Lo 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Giant's Lo 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 A Giant Among Women .
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.
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 Giant's Lo in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of A Giant Among Women 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 A Giant Among Women 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 A Giant Among Women 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 A Giant Among Women 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 A Giant Among Women 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 Giant's Lo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.