La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause
The case recounts the development and implementation of the first social media campaign at La Protectora de la Infancia (La Protectora), a centenary, Chilean non-profit organization offering education and social assistance to children in need. With a large number of non-profits operating in several domains across the country, competition for volunteers and donations was high in the sector. However, Chile had one of the most engaged social media markets worldwide, and it had the highest rate of broadband connection in Latin America. In March 2016, the marketing team was planning the next fundraising campaign with the help of a social media marketing consultant. They needed to decide how the organization could use social media and the fundraising campaign to engage volunteers and donors, creating a stronger and more positive image for the institution.
Swot Analysis of "La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause" written by Daiane Scaraboto includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Protectora La facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social platforms and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing,
increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Protectora La, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Protectora La 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Protectora La
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 Protectora La
Strengths La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Protectora La in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause Harvard Business Review case study are -
Strong track record of project management
– Protectora La 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
– Protectora La 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 Daiane Scaraboto 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Protectora La is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Protectora La 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Protectora La has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Protectora La to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Protectora La in the sector have low bargaining power. La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Protectora La to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Protectora La 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 Protectora La is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Protectora La 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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 Protectora La 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
– Protectora La is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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.
Training and development
– Protectora La has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Protectora La digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Protectora La 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.
Weaknesses La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Protectora La has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Protectora La products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Protectora La needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Protectora La is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Protectora La is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Protectora La needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Protectora La to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Protectora La 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 - La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause HBR case study mentions - Protectora La 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Protectora La 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Protectora La is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Protectora La, firm in the HBR case study La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Protectora La 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, Protectora La 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.
Opportunities La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause | 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Protectora La can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Protectora La 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.
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. Protectora La 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. Protectora La 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Protectora La 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Protectora La in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Protectora La 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, La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Protectora La 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Protectora La to increase its market reach. Protectora La 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Protectora La 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 Sales & Marketing segment.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Protectora La 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 Protectora La to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Protectora La can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Protectora La 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Protectora La to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Protectora La in the consumer business. Now Protectora La can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause are -
Regulatory challenges
– Protectora La 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.
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 Protectora La.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Protectora La is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Protectora La with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Protectora La 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Protectora La 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.
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 Protectora La business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause, Protectora La 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 .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Protectora La can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Protectora La in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Protectora La 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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 La Protectora: Engaging in Social Media for a Social Cause 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 Protectora La needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
