The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer?
The sport of soccer (more commonly known as "football" outside North America) has long been a predominantly men's game: men's clubs on every continent generate huge revenues and the FIFA World Cup is the most popular and profitable sporting event on the planet. Slowly but surely, however, women's soccer is starting to emerge from the long shadow cast by its male counterpart. In 2016, for example, 70,454 spectators gathered at Rio's Maracana stadium to watch a women's soccer semi-final between Sweden and Brazil. The previous year, 53,341 spectators attended the final of the 7th FIFA Women's World Cup at BC Place in Vancouver, Canada. And now, the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), founded in the United States in 2013, is attempting to prove that a national women's professional league can be profitable. In short, all the stars seem to be aligned for the professionalization of women's soccer, i.e., the organizational transformation familiar to the federations, clubs, national teams, and other organizations that make up the core of this truly global sport. The case examines the history, issues, and challenges faced by attempts on American soil to carve out a place for women at the highest levels of the world's most practised sport.
Authors :: Sebastien Arcand, Jerome Bilodeau, Joseph Facal, Stephanie Fortier-Grondin
Swot Analysis of "The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer?" written by Sebastien Arcand, Jerome Bilodeau, Joseph Facal, Stephanie Fortier-Grondin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Soccer Women's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate governance, Ethics, Gender and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Soccer Women's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Soccer Women's 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Soccer Women's
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 Soccer Women's
Strengths The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Soccer Women's in The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Soccer Women's 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Soccer Women's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Soccer Women's 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Soccer Women's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Soccer Women's 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Soccer Women's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Soccer Women's in the sector have low bargaining power. The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Soccer Women's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Soccer Women's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Soccer Women's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Soccer Women's 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 Sebastien Arcand, Jerome Bilodeau, Joseph Facal, Stephanie Fortier-Grondin 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.
Training and development
– Soccer Women's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Soccer Women's is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Soccer Women's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Soccer Women's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Soccer Women's 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.
Weaknesses The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Soccer Women's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Soccer Women's 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 Soccer Women's 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 - The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Soccer Women's, firm in the HBR case study The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? HBR case study mentions - Soccer Women's 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Soccer Women's 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer?, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer?, it seems that the employees of Soccer Women's 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer?, is just above the industry average. Soccer Women's 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Soccer Women's 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. Soccer Women's 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Soccer Women's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Soccer Women's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Soccer Women's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? | 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Soccer Women's 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Soccer Women's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Soccer Women's 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.
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. Soccer Women's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Soccer Women's 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Soccer Women's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Soccer Women's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? case study. Soccer Women's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Soccer Women's 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Soccer Women's 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Soccer Women's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Soccer Women's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Soccer Women's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
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. Soccer Women's 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. Soccer Women's 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Soccer Women's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Soccer Women's 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.
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. Soccer Women's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Soccer Women's 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Soccer Women's 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. Soccer Women's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Soccer Women's 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Soccer Women's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Soccer Women's 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.
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. Soccer Women's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Soccer Women's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Soccer Women's 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Soccer Women's 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.
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. Soccer Women's 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.
Increasing wage structure of Soccer Women's
– 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 Soccer Women's.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Soccer Women's 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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 The National Women's Soccer League: Towards the Successful Professionalization of Women's Soccer? 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 Soccer Women's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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