Case Study Description of PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign
A year and a half after calling off its campaign against fast-food giant McDonald's, the vegan campaign coordinator of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) contacted Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) to warn the company that it would be the next target. He pointed out in his letter that whereas many of KFC's competitors had convened advisory panels to help investigate the welfare of animals raised and slaughtered for their businesses, KFC appeared completely uninterested in the issue. PETA would rather not engage KFC in a campaign, but if the company refused to put together an animal welfare panel to begin to look into the issue of how to raise and slaughter its chickens more humanely, all the leaflets, action alerts, posters, billboards, T-shirts, and press releases PETA was now preparing would be dedicated to KFC and its cruel treatment of chickens. In January 2003, PETA, fed up with what it saw as KFC's lack of open communication, public misinformation, and outright stonewalling on change, announced a campaign against the company to the media in a news event replete with bloody descriptions of the cruelties of KFC's animal factories. Now it was time for KFC to respond.
Swot Analysis of "PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign" written by Gerard Seijts, Michael Sider includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Kfc Peta facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Corporate communications, Crisis management, Ethics, Social responsibility and Communication.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
technology disruption, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kfc Peta, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kfc Peta 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kfc Peta
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Communication field.
4. Making a Communication topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kfc Peta
Strengths PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kfc Peta in PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kfc Peta has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kfc Peta in the sector have low bargaining power. PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kfc Peta to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kfc Peta has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kfc Peta 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.
Digital Transformation in Communication segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kfc Peta digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kfc Peta 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.
High brand equity
– Kfc Peta has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kfc Peta to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kfc Peta 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Kfc Peta is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communication industry
– PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kfc Peta to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communication industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kfc Peta to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Kfc Peta is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kfc Peta in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Kfc Peta has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kfc Peta is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Kfc Peta 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Communication 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, Kfc Peta 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. Kfc Peta 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kfc Peta 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kfc Peta 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Kfc Peta 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Kfc Peta is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communication segment. Kfc Peta needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kfc Peta to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kfc Peta 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign HBR case study mentions - Kfc Peta 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kfc Peta is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign | 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kfc Peta in the consumer business. Now Kfc Peta can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kfc Peta 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kfc Peta to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kfc Peta 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 Kfc Peta to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kfc Peta 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, PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kfc Peta 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kfc Peta can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kfc Peta operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communication sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kfc Peta has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Kfc Peta to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign case study. Kfc Peta can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kfc Peta 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kfc Peta can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Kfc Peta 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kfc Peta is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kfc Peta can develop new processes and procedures in Communication 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communication industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Kfc Peta can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kfc Peta in the Communication industry. The Communication 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.
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. Kfc Peta 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.
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.
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. Kfc Peta needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communication industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communication field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kfc Peta can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Kfc Peta in the Communication sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kfc Peta 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.
Increasing wage structure of Kfc Peta
– 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 Kfc Peta.
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 Kfc Peta business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Kfc Peta 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 Communication industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kfc Peta has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communication industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kfc Peta needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communication 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign, Kfc Peta may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communication .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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 PETA's "Kentucky-Fried Cruelty, Inc." Campaign 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 Kfc Peta needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.