mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal
In 2017, the German company mymuesli GmbH (mymuesli) was operating in six European countries. Having begun to successfully distribute its customizable organic breakfast cereals online, mymuesli built on its growing popularity by opening stores in various cities across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, where the most popular versions of the product were sold. The relatively young company differentiated itself with its customizable, premium organic products, and relied on its strengths to adapt to lifestyle and health trends. After a conversation in early 2017 with fellow hotel guests hailing from different European countries, the three founders of mymuesli were convinced that entering new countries might be a promising option for the company's future growth. They began to analyze the maturing industry and its impacts on the company's growth plans. Marc Fetscherin is affiliated with Rollins College.
Swot Analysis of "mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal" written by Marc Fetscherin, Elena Kasper includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Mymuesli Customizable facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mymuesli Customizable, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mymuesli Customizable 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mymuesli Customizable
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 Mymuesli Customizable
Strengths mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mymuesli Customizable in mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mymuesli Customizable 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Mymuesli Customizable 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 Mymuesli Customizable in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mymuesli Customizable in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mymuesli Customizable is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mymuesli Customizable in the sector have low bargaining power. mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mymuesli Customizable to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mymuesli Customizable is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mymuesli Customizable has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mymuesli Customizable to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mymuesli Customizable to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Mymuesli Customizable 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
– Mymuesli Customizable 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 Marc Fetscherin, Elena Kasper 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.
Learning organization
- Mymuesli Customizable 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 Mymuesli Customizable is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mymuesli Customizable 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. Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Mymuesli Customizable 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 - mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mymuesli Customizable is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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 Mymuesli Customizable 's lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal HBR case study mentions - Mymuesli Customizable 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mymuesli Customizable is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Mymuesli Customizable needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mymuesli Customizable to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mymuesli Customizable is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Mymuesli Customizable, firm in the HBR case study mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mymuesli Customizable products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mymuesli Customizable needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Opportunities mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal | 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mymuesli Customizable 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
– Mymuesli Customizable can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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.
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. Mymuesli Customizable 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 Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mymuesli Customizable to increase its market reach. Mymuesli Customizable 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, Mymuesli Customizable 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 Mymuesli Customizable can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mymuesli Customizable is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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, Mymuesli Customizable can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mymuesli Customizable operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Mymuesli Customizable 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. Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mymuesli Customizable 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 Mymuesli Customizable to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Threats mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mymuesli Customizable 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mymuesli Customizable can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mymuesli Customizable has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mymuesli Customizable 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.
Environmental challenges
– Mymuesli Customizable 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. Mymuesli Customizable can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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 Mymuesli Customizable.
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 Mymuesli Customizable business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mymuesli Customizable is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal, Mymuesli Customizable 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 .
Regulatory challenges
– Mymuesli Customizable 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mymuesli Customizable 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.
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 Mymuesli Customizable in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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 mymuesli: New Markets for Customized Breakfast Cereal 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 Mymuesli Customizable needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.