Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes
Today's retailers need to adopt a data-driven view -with the goal of understanding how website features and advances in AI will affect consumer behavior.
Authors :: Prabuddha De, Yu Jeffrey Hu, Mohammad S. Rahman
Swot Analysis of "Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes" written by Prabuddha De, Yu Jeffrey Hu, Mohammad S. Rahman includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ai Mistakes facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ai Mistakes, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ai Mistakes 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 Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ai Mistakes
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 Ai Mistakes
Strengths Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ai Mistakes in Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Ai Mistakes 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 Prabuddha De, Yu Jeffrey Hu, Mohammad S. Rahman 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ai Mistakes to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ai Mistakes to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Ai Mistakes has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ai Mistakes to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ai Mistakes is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Ai Mistakes is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ai Mistakes 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ai Mistakes digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ai Mistakes 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ai Mistakes is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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 Ai Mistakes in the sector have low bargaining power. Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ai Mistakes to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ai Mistakes 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ai Mistakes has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ai Mistakes 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.
Weaknesses Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Prabuddha De, Yu Jeffrey Hu, Mohammad S. Rahman suggests that, Ai Mistakes 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ai Mistakes 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ai Mistakes 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, Ai Mistakes 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. Ai Mistakes 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 Ai Mistakes 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 - Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Ai Mistakes, firm in the HBR case study Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes, it seems that the employees of Ai Mistakes don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes, in the dynamic environment Ai Mistakes has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ai Mistakes has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ai Mistakes products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ai Mistakes needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ai Mistakes 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.
Opportunities Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes | 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 Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ai Mistakes 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 Ai Mistakes to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Ai Mistakes can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ai Mistakes to increase its market reach. Ai Mistakes 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ai Mistakes can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ai Mistakes 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.
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. Ai Mistakes can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ai Mistakes 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ai Mistakes 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ai Mistakes 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, Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Ai Mistakes can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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
– Ai Mistakes 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 Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ai Mistakes to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ai Mistakes is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ai Mistakes 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.
Threats Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ai Mistakes is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Ai Mistakes can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ai Mistakes 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.
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 Ai Mistakes.
Increasing wage structure of Ai Mistakes
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Ai Mistakes.
Environmental challenges
– Ai Mistakes 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. Ai Mistakes can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ai Mistakes with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes, Ai Mistakes 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 .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ai Mistakes 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ai Mistakes 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.
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. Ai Mistakes 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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 Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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 Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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 Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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 Avoid These Five Digital Retailing Mistakes 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 Ai Mistakes needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.