Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business
In 2010, three friends created Fruits of Sherbrooke as a way to rescue local fruit that would otherwise be wasted. The founders knew their efforts would be beneficial for the environment and for people in need of food. In February 2016, having grown their business into a successful social enterprise entirely through the help of volunteers, they faced important decisions. Realistically, they would not always be able to run the organization, which meant facing issues of succession. Additionally, they needed to decide how to balance growth strategies with their commitment to the social good. Should the organization focus on maximizing profitability or should decisions for growth be based only on providing the greatest benefit possible to the community and environment? The authors Amy Hingston, Cuong Pham, Andrew Phelan, Matthew Townley, David Vetters, and Joel Gehman are affiliated with University of Alberta.
Swot Analysis of "Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business" written by Amy Hingston, Leanne Hedberg Carlson, Cuong Pham, Andrew Phelan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Sherbrooke Fruits facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social enterprise, Succession planning, Sustainability and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sherbrooke Fruits, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sherbrooke Fruits 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sherbrooke Fruits
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 Sherbrooke Fruits
Strengths Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sherbrooke Fruits in Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sherbrooke Fruits has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Analytics focus
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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 Amy Hingston, Leanne Hedberg Carlson, Cuong Pham, Andrew Phelan 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sherbrooke Fruits is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sherbrooke Fruits to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sherbrooke Fruits to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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 Sherbrooke Fruits in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sherbrooke Fruits digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Sherbrooke Fruits is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sherbrooke Fruits in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Sherbrooke Fruits has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sherbrooke Fruits to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business HBR case study mentions - Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sherbrooke Fruits 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 - Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sherbrooke Fruits products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sherbrooke Fruits needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business, it seems that the employees of Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
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 Sherbrooke Fruits supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sherbrooke Fruits vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sherbrooke Fruits 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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 Sherbrooke Fruits 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Sherbrooke Fruits, firm in the HBR case study Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business, is just above the industry average. Sherbrooke Fruits 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business | 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business are -
Loyalty marketing
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
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. Sherbrooke Fruits can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sherbrooke Fruits in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sherbrooke Fruits has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Sherbrooke Fruits to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business case study. Sherbrooke Fruits can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sherbrooke Fruits is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sherbrooke Fruits can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Sherbrooke Fruits can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sherbrooke Fruits can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sherbrooke Fruits 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 Sherbrooke Fruits to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business are -
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 Sherbrooke Fruits in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Sherbrooke Fruits with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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. Sherbrooke Fruits can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business, Sherbrooke Fruits may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sherbrooke Fruits is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Sherbrooke Fruits 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 Sherbrooke Fruits.
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. Sherbrooke Fruits 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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 Fruits of Sherbrooke: Creating a Sustainable Business 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 Sherbrooke Fruits needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.