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 - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, 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 -
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.
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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Charagh Din 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 Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Charagh Din 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.
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.
High brand equity
– Charagh Din has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Charagh Din to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Charagh Din 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 - Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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.
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.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Charagh Din is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Charagh Din needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Charagh Din to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite, in the dynamic environment Charagh Din has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Charagh Din has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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 Charagh Din has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution 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.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite, is just above the industry average. Charagh Din 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.
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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Charagh Din is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Charagh Din: Dressing the Elite 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.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Charagh Din can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Charagh Din can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Charagh Din 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Charagh Din 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Charagh Din can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
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 -
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. Charagh Din 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Charagh Din has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Charagh Din needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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 Charagh Din in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Charagh Din business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Charagh Din is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 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 .
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.
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.
