Case Study Description of Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited
The treasurer of a Toronto men's wear manufacturer attempts to negotiate bank financing for his company. The task is made more complex by the need to purchase material from Hong Kong and by sales made to the United States and Italy.
Swot Analysis of "Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited" written by James E. Hatch, Steven Cox includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Menswear Alfred facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Menswear Alfred, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Menswear Alfred 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Menswear Alfred
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Finance & Accounting field.
4. Making a Finance & Accounting topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Menswear Alfred
Strengths Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Menswear Alfred in Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Menswear Alfred 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 Menswear Alfred in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Menswear Alfred in the sector have low bargaining power. Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Menswear Alfred to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Menswear Alfred in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Menswear Alfred 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 Menswear Alfred is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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.
Organizational Resilience of Menswear Alfred
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Menswear Alfred does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Menswear Alfred has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Menswear Alfred digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Menswear Alfred 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Menswear Alfred has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Menswear Alfred 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Menswear Alfred is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Menswear Alfred 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Menswear Alfred 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Menswear Alfred 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Menswear Alfred 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Menswear Alfred is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Menswear Alfred is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Menswear Alfred 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 - Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited, in the dynamic environment Menswear Alfred has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Menswear Alfred has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited, it seems that the employees of Menswear Alfred 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Finance & Accounting 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, Menswear Alfred 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. Menswear Alfred 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Menswear Alfred products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Menswear Alfred needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Menswear Alfred 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited | 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Menswear Alfred 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 Menswear Alfred to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Menswear Alfred 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Menswear Alfred 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 Finance & Accounting segment.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Menswear Alfred to increase its market reach. Menswear Alfred 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.
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 Menswear Alfred 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Menswear Alfred 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Menswear Alfred 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, Menswear Alfred can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Menswear Alfred operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Menswear Alfred 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, Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Menswear Alfred 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Menswear Alfred 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Menswear Alfred can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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
– Menswear Alfred can develop new processes and procedures in Finance & Accounting 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Menswear Alfred 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.
Threats Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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. Menswear Alfred 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Menswear Alfred is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Menswear Alfred in the Finance & Accounting industry. The Finance & Accounting 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Menswear Alfred can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Menswear Alfred has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Finance & Accounting industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Menswear Alfred needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Finance & Accounting 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.
Increasing wage structure of Menswear Alfred
– 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 Menswear Alfred.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Menswear Alfred 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.
Environmental challenges
– Menswear Alfred 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. Menswear Alfred can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited, Menswear Alfred may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Finance & Accounting .
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 Menswear Alfred business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Menswear Alfred needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Menswear Alfred with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Alfred Brooks Menswear Limited 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 Menswear Alfred needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.