Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture
This case describes the strategic and operational challenges faced by John Frederick, the founder of Wolo, an online marketplace for socially-conscious businesses. Frederick has difficult decisions to make regarding investment, brand orientation and personnel as he seeks to increase Wolo's profitability moving forward. Frederick sees great potential in focusing on the yoga products category, but needs to decide if Wolo will abandon its vision of creating the first marketplace that spans the spectrum socially-conscious products.
Swot Analysis of "Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture" written by Patrick Henry, Susan S. Harmeling includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Wolo Frederick facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wolo Frederick, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wolo Frederick 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wolo Frederick
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Wolo Frederick
Strengths Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wolo Frederick in Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wolo Frederick in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wolo Frederick 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wolo Frederick 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.
High brand equity
– Wolo Frederick has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wolo Frederick to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Wolo Frederick
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Wolo Frederick does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Wolo Frederick to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Wolo Frederick to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Wolo Frederick digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Wolo Frederick 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.
Learning organization
- Wolo Frederick 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 Wolo Frederick is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Wolo Frederick is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Wolo Frederick 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.
Analytics focus
– Wolo Frederick 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 Patrick Henry, Susan S. Harmeling 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.
Weaknesses Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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 Wolo Frederick has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Wolo Frederick 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 - Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wolo Frederick is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wolo Frederick has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Wolo Frederick 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Wolo Frederick has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Wolo Frederick 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wolo Frederick products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wolo Frederick needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Wolo Frederick is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture, is just above the industry average. Wolo Frederick 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Wolo Frederick 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.
Opportunities Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture | 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Wolo Frederick 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Wolo Frederick to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Wolo Frederick can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Wolo Frederick 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Wolo Frederick can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Wolo Frederick 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, Wolo Frederick is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wolo Frederick 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Wolo Frederick 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Wolo Frederick can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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.
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 Wolo Frederick in the consumer business. Now Wolo Frederick can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Wolo Frederick 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 Wolo Frederick to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Wolo Frederick 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wolo Frederick to increase its market reach. Wolo Frederick will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Threats Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Wolo Frederick 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture .
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.
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 Wolo Frederick business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Wolo Frederick needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wolo Frederick has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wolo Frederick needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wolo Frederick in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Wolo Frederick with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wolo Frederick 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
– Wolo Frederick 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. Wolo Frederick can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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 Wolo Frederick in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wolo Frederick 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
– Wolo Frederick 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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 Wolo: The Highs and Lows of a Socially-Conscious Venture 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 Wolo Frederick needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
