Swot Analysis of "Pacific Salmon Co., Inc." written by Nabil N. El-Hage, Kenneth A. Froot, Christopher E.J. Payton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Salmon Pacific facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurial finance, Financial analysis, Financial management, Mergers & acquisitions, Negotiations, Risk management and Finance & Accounting.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Pacific Salmon Co., Inc.
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Salmon Pacific, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Salmon Pacific 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Salmon Pacific
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 Salmon Pacific
Strengths Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Salmon Pacific in Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Salmon Pacific 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Finance & Accounting industry
– Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Salmon Pacific to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Salmon Pacific to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Salmon Pacific 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.
Digital Transformation in Finance & Accounting segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Salmon Pacific digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Salmon Pacific 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.
Ability to lead change in Finance & Accounting field
– Salmon Pacific 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 Salmon Pacific in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Salmon Pacific in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Salmon Pacific is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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.
Training and development
– Salmon Pacific has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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.
Learning organization
- Salmon Pacific 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 Salmon Pacific is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Salmon Pacific 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Salmon Pacific
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Salmon Pacific does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Salmon Pacific products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Salmon Pacific needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Pacific Salmon Co., Inc., it seems that the employees of Salmon Pacific 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Salmon Pacific supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Pacific Salmon Co., Inc., it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Salmon Pacific vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Salmon Pacific, firm in the HBR case study Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Pacific Salmon Co., Inc., 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Salmon Pacific 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Salmon Pacific is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Finance & Accounting segment. Salmon Pacific needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Salmon Pacific to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Salmon Pacific 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Salmon Pacific 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Salmon Pacific is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Salmon Pacific has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. | 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Salmon Pacific in the consumer business. Now Salmon Pacific can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Salmon Pacific 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Salmon Pacific 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, Pacific Salmon Co., Inc., to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Finance & Accounting industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Salmon Pacific can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Finance & Accounting industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Salmon Pacific 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. Salmon Pacific 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Salmon Pacific to increase its market reach. Salmon Pacific 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 Salmon Pacific has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Salmon Pacific to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. case study. Salmon Pacific can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Salmon Pacific 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Salmon Pacific can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Salmon Pacific operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Finance & Accounting sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Salmon Pacific is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Salmon Pacific 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
– Salmon Pacific 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Salmon Pacific to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Salmon Pacific 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.
Threats Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. are -
Regulatory challenges
– Salmon Pacific 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 Finance & Accounting industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Salmon Pacific 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Salmon Pacific 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.
Environmental challenges
– Salmon Pacific 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. Salmon Pacific can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Finance & Accounting industry.
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. Salmon Pacific 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Salmon Pacific 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. .
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Finance & Accounting field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Salmon Pacific 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 Salmon Pacific in the Finance & Accounting sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Salmon Pacific with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Salmon Pacific is facing in Finance & Accounting sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Salmon Pacific needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Finance & Accounting industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Pacific Salmon Co., Inc. 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 Salmon Pacific needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
