Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing
The owner and operator of two stores that sold organic groceries and fair-trade goods in Edmonton, Alberta was proud of what he had built; however he was worried about the financial sustainability of his downtown location. Since its opening in 2014, the downtown store had constantly struggled to remain profitable in the face of extremely high overhead costs. The original Whyte Avenue location of Earth's General Store, highly popular with its loyal patrons, had been subsidizing the downtown store just to keep its doors open. This practice was certainly not a long-term solution, and in early 2016, the owner needed to create a new business strategy that would balance his company's financial needs with its social and environmental missions. The authors Ashton Paulitsch, Maninder Pardais, Bernard Streeper, Brian Ballman, Taylor Love, and Joel Gehman are affiliated with University of Alberta.
Authors :: Ashton Paulitsch, Maninder Pardais, Bernard Streeper, Brian Ballman
Swot Analysis of "Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing" written by Ashton Paulitsch, Maninder Pardais, Bernard Streeper, Brian Ballman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Downtown Earth's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sustainability and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Downtown Earth's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Downtown Earth's 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Downtown Earth's
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Downtown Earth's
Strengths Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Downtown Earth's in Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Downtown Earth's 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Downtown Earth's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Downtown Earth's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Downtown Earth's 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 Downtown Earth's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Downtown Earth's 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 Ashton Paulitsch, Maninder Pardais, Bernard Streeper, Brian Ballman 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.
Organizational Resilience of Downtown Earth's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Downtown Earth's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Downtown Earth's 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Downtown Earth's 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 Downtown Earth's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Downtown Earth's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Downtown Earth's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Downtown Earth's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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
- Downtown Earth's 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 Downtown Earth's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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.
Weaknesses Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Downtown Earth's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Downtown Earth's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Downtown Earth's 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, Downtown Earth's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Downtown Earth's 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing, is just above the industry average. Downtown Earth's 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Downtown Earth's 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Downtown Earth's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing, in the dynamic environment Downtown Earth's has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Downtown Earth's has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Downtown Earth's 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Downtown Earth's 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ashton Paulitsch, Maninder Pardais, Bernard Streeper, Brian Ballman suggests that, Downtown Earth's is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Downtown Earth's 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 - Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing | 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Downtown Earth's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Downtown Earth's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Downtown Earth's 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 Downtown Earth's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Downtown Earth's in the consumer business. Now Downtown Earth's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Downtown Earth's 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Downtown Earth's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Downtown Earth's 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Downtown Earth's 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Downtown Earth's in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Downtown Earth's 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Downtown Earth's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Downtown Earth's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Downtown Earth's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Downtown Earth's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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.
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. Downtown Earth's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Downtown Earth's in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Downtown Earth's 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Downtown Earth's 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Downtown Earth's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Downtown Earth's in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing, Downtown Earth's may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Regulatory challenges
– Downtown Earth's 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Downtown Earth's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Downtown Earth's.
Increasing wage structure of Downtown Earth's
– 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 Downtown Earth's.
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 Downtown Earth's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Downtown Earth's 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. Downtown Earth's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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 Earth's General Store: Balancing People, Planet, and Profit in Organic-Food Retailing 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 Downtown Earth's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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