Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution?
Wearables, self-driving cars, AI displacing people who will spend less time working and more time searching for memorable experiences to share on social media. These trends are already triggering a seismic shift in consumer patterns toward a constantly connected and engaged omnichannel model. From his research on retail sector trends and the challenges posed by digitization, the author offers a series of tips so that brands and businesses can adapt to the consumer of the future. As the success of firms like Zara, Mango, Uniqlo, Apple and Amazon show, the keys to survival in this new age are unforgettable customer experiences and efficiency.
Swot Analysis of "Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution?" written by Guillermo D'Andrea includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Omnichannel Age facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Supply chain and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Omnichannel Age, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Omnichannel Age 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Omnichannel Age
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 Omnichannel Age
Strengths Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Omnichannel Age in Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Omnichannel Age is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Omnichannel Age is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Omnichannel Age 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 Omnichannel Age in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Omnichannel Age
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Omnichannel Age does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Omnichannel Age in the sector have low bargaining power. Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Omnichannel Age to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Omnichannel Age 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
– Omnichannel Age is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Omnichannel Age has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
High brand equity
– Omnichannel Age has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Omnichannel Age to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Omnichannel Age in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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.
Training and development
– Omnichannel Age has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Omnichannel Age products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Omnichannel Age 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, Omnichannel Age is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Omnichannel Age 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 - Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution?, is just above the industry average. Omnichannel Age 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, Guillermo D'Andrea suggests that, Omnichannel Age 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Omnichannel Age 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. Omnichannel Age 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Omnichannel Age 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Omnichannel Age is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Omnichannel Age needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Omnichannel Age to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Omnichannel Age has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Omnichannel Age 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.
Opportunities Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? | 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Omnichannel Age 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Omnichannel Age 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 Omnichannel Age in the consumer business. Now Omnichannel Age can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Omnichannel Age 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Omnichannel Age 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Omnichannel Age has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Omnichannel Age to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? case study. Omnichannel Age can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Omnichannel Age 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, Omnichannel Age 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, Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Omnichannel Age can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Omnichannel Age operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Omnichannel Age 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.
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. Omnichannel Age 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. Omnichannel Age 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Omnichannel Age can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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 Omnichannel Age 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Omnichannel Age 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.
Threats Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? are -
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Omnichannel Age is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Omnichannel Age 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Omnichannel Age 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? .
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. Omnichannel Age needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Omnichannel Age can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Omnichannel Age 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.
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. Omnichannel Age 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Omnichannel Age 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 Omnichannel Age business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Omnichannel Age 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.
Environmental challenges
– Omnichannel Age 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. Omnichannel Age can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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 Rethinking the Funnel for the Omnichannel Age: Are You Ready for the Retail Revolution? 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 Omnichannel Age needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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