Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core
Sante Au Naturel was a natural health boutique in Montreal's downtown core. The company was off to a strong start in a growing market, but as its best-selling products became more mainstream, large retailers were entering the market, stealing customers, and driving down margins. In early 2017, Sante Au Naturel's owner reflected on further differentiation of her offering and targeted marketing; she wanted to improve her marketing mix to grow sales and protect margins. Robert Mackalski is affiliated with McGill University.
Swot Analysis of "Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core" written by Robert Mackalski, Marc Ducusin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Au Naturel facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Au Naturel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Au Naturel 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Au Naturel
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 Au Naturel
Strengths Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Au Naturel in Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Au Naturel is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Au Naturel to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Au Naturel to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Au Naturel is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Au Naturel is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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.
Organizational Resilience of Au Naturel
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Au Naturel does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Au Naturel 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Au Naturel 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Au Naturel 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.
Learning organization
- Au Naturel is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Au Naturel is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Au Naturel 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Au Naturel has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Robert Mackalski, Marc Ducusin suggests that, Au Naturel 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Au Naturel 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Au Naturel 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Au Naturel is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Au Naturel needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Au Naturel to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core HBR case study mentions - Au Naturel 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Au Naturel 's lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Au Naturel products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Au Naturel needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core, is just above the industry average. Au Naturel 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Au Naturel 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Au Naturel 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 - Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Au Naturel is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core | 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Au Naturel 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 Au Naturel to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Au Naturel 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. Au Naturel 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Au Naturel 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Au Naturel 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Au Naturel can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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.
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. Au Naturel can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Au Naturel 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Au Naturel can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Au Naturel is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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.
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 Au Naturel 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Au Naturel 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, Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Au Naturel 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Au Naturel to increase its market reach. Au Naturel 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.
Threats Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Au Naturel has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Au Naturel needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing 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.
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. Au Naturel can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Au Naturel 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Au Naturel 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.
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. Au Naturel needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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 Au Naturel business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Au Naturel 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
– Au Naturel 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.
Increasing wage structure of Au Naturel
– 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 Au Naturel.
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 Au Naturel.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core, Au Naturel 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 .
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. Au Naturel 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Sante Au Naturel: Healthy to the Core 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 Au Naturel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
