Case Study Description of SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision
Sunny Bee is a real-world example of a recent business student putting his learning to work to build a successful social venture in his home country of India. The case includes: -A base case that provides background on the material and addresses the entrepreneurial process. This case should be assigned first. -Four follow-on cases that can be taught in any order: -A lean supply chain case -A sustainability case -A business analytics case -A digital innovation case
Swot Analysis of "SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision" written by Jennifer Ellis, Ruben Mancha includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Bee Sunnybee facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Social responsibility, Supply chain, Sustainability and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bee Sunnybee, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bee Sunnybee 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bee Sunnybee
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bee Sunnybee
Strengths SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bee Sunnybee in SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bee Sunnybee has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bee Sunnybee 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bee Sunnybee 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Bee Sunnybee is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bee Sunnybee 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bee Sunnybee is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Bee Sunnybee 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
- Bee Sunnybee 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 Bee Sunnybee is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bee Sunnybee is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bee Sunnybee in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bee Sunnybee to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bee Sunnybee to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Bee Sunnybee 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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.
Weaknesses SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bee Sunnybee 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Bee Sunnybee needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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 Bee Sunnybee has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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 Bee Sunnybee 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bee Sunnybee is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bee Sunnybee 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. Bee Sunnybee 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Bee Sunnybee has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bee Sunnybee 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision, it seems that the employees of Bee Sunnybee 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bee Sunnybee is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Bee Sunnybee needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bee Sunnybee to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision | 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bee Sunnybee is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bee Sunnybee can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Bee Sunnybee 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bee Sunnybee 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bee Sunnybee 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bee Sunnybee to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bee Sunnybee can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bee Sunnybee operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bee Sunnybee 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bee Sunnybee can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bee Sunnybee can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bee Sunnybee 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 Bee Sunnybee to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Bee Sunnybee in the consumer business. Now Bee Sunnybee can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bee Sunnybee to increase its market reach. Bee Sunnybee 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bee Sunnybee has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Bee Sunnybee to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision case study. Bee Sunnybee can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bee Sunnybee can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Bee Sunnybee 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.
Environmental challenges
– Bee Sunnybee 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. Bee Sunnybee can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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 Bee Sunnybee in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Bee Sunnybee.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bee Sunnybee 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision .
Increasing wage structure of Bee Sunnybee
– 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 Bee Sunnybee.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bee Sunnybee is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bee Sunnybee 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.
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.
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 Bee Sunnybee business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bee Sunnybee has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bee Sunnybee needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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 SunnyBee (A): The Entrepreneurial Decision 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 Bee Sunnybee needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
