Case Study Description of Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite
Charagh Din sold premium men's shirts in Mumbai, India, to elite customers. It had been in business for three generations, dating back to 1949, and had evolved from a small tailoring shop to a multi-storied showroom. The brand was recognized for its unique designs and outstanding customer service. However, unlike its competitors, Charagh Din did not have in-house manufacturing. The business model worked well when India was a regulated economy, but, after the 1990s, aggressive national and international competition that catered to the apparel needs of the entire family began eroding Charagh Din's market share. In 2017, the owner was considering how to target growth while being able to maintain family control over the company. Amita Mital is affiliated with Indian Institute of Management Lucknow.
Swot Analysis of "Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite" written by Amita Mital, Vijayalakshmi Natarajan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Charagh Din facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Manufacturing, Marketing and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Charagh Din, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Charagh Din 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Charagh Din
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Charagh Din
Strengths Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Charagh Din in Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Charagh Din in the sector have low bargaining power. Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Charagh Din to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Charagh Din in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Charagh Din digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Charagh Din 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Charagh Din to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Charagh Din to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Charagh Din 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
– Charagh Din is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Charagh Din 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Charagh Din is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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
– Charagh Din has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Charagh Din 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.
Training and development
– Charagh Din has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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.
Analytics focus
– Charagh Din 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 Amita Mital, Vijayalakshmi Natarajan 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
– Charagh Din is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Charagh Din 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. Charagh Din 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Charagh Din 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din 's lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Charagh Din 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite, it seems that the employees of Charagh Din 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Charagh Din 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite HBR case study mentions - Charagh Din 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Amita Mital, Vijayalakshmi Natarajan suggests that, Charagh Din 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 dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Charagh Din supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Charagh Din vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Charagh Din 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Charagh Din is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite | 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite are -
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 Charagh Din in the consumer business. Now Charagh Din can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Charagh Din 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Charagh Din in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Charagh Din can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Charagh Din to increase its market reach. Charagh Din 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Charagh Din 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Charagh Din to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Charagh Din 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Charagh Din 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 Charagh Din to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Charagh Din can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Charagh Din has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Charagh Din to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite case study. Charagh Din can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Charagh Din 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, Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Charagh Din 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. Charagh Din 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Charagh Din 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite are -
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. Charagh Din needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Charagh Din 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Charagh Din 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Charagh Din can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite, Charagh Din may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
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.
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 Charagh Din.
Increasing wage structure of Charagh Din
– 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 Charagh Din.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Charagh Din 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Charagh Din in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Charagh Din 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Charagh Din with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.