The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro
In October 2014 Bruce Miller, Chief Marketing and Development Officer and co-owner for The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro was considering changes to the structure, level, and presentation of his restaurants' prices. The WORKS was the premiere full-service burger restaurant chain in Ontario and had been the fastest growing full-service restaurant business in Canada in 2013, posting 50% year-over-year growth. In the four years Miller and his partners had owned The WORKS they expanded from five locations in one city to 26 locations across Canada. During that time, however, Miller had not altered prices in any significant way and was facing increasing costs of beef as well as a lack of clarity amongst his target segment as to what The WORKS was and what it offered.
Swot Analysis of "The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro" written by Eric Dolansky, Bruce Miller includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Burger Miller facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Pricing and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Burger Miller, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Burger Miller 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Burger Miller
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Burger Miller
Strengths The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Burger Miller in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Burger Miller 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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 Burger Miller 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
– Burger Miller is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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
– Burger Miller has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Burger Miller 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Burger Miller 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 Burger Miller 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 Sales & Marketing industry
– The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Burger Miller to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Burger Miller to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Burger Miller
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Burger Miller does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Burger Miller is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Burger Miller 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 Eric Dolansky, Bruce Miller 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Burger Miller is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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
- Burger Miller 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 Burger Miller is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Burger Miller has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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.
Weaknesses The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro, is just above the industry average. Burger Miller 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Eric Dolansky, Bruce Miller suggests that, Burger Miller 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Burger Miller 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Burger Miller has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Burger Miller even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Burger Miller 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.
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 Burger Miller supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Burger Miller vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Burger Miller 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Burger Miller products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Burger Miller needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro HBR case study mentions - Burger Miller 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro, in the dynamic environment Burger Miller has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Burger Miller has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Burger Miller is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro | 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Burger Miller 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, The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Burger Miller 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. Burger Miller 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
– Burger Miller 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Burger Miller 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. Burger Miller can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Burger Miller 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.
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 Burger Miller 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Burger Miller 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Burger Miller can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Burger Miller is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Burger Miller can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Burger Miller operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Burger Miller to increase its market reach. Burger Miller 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Burger Miller 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Burger Miller can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Burger Miller with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Burger Miller business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Burger Miller 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 Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro, Burger Miller may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Environmental challenges
– Burger Miller 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. Burger Miller can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Burger Miller 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. Burger Miller needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Burger Miller 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 Burger Miller in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing 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.
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 Burger Miller in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Burger Miller.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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 The WORKS Gourmet Burger Bistro 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 Burger Miller needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
