PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water
Color case includes color exhibits. To maximize their effectiveness, color cases and exhibits should be printed in color.Senior management at PSI, arguably the world's largest and most successful social marketer with impressive achievements in the field of family planning, HIV/AIDS, and malaria prevention must determine what to do about their slow-to-take-off clean water initiative. PSI's point-of-use products offered effective protection against water-borne diseases, especially diarrhea, yet the organization found it hard to attract donor funds to sustain the initiative. Its managers must determine how to alter their strategy going forward.
Authors :: V. Kasturi Rangan, Nava Ashraf, Marie Bell
Topics :: Global Business
Tags :: Health, International business, Marketing, Social enterprise, Strategic planning, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water" written by V. Kasturi Rangan, Nava Ashraf, Marie Bell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Psi Water facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Health, International business, Marketing, Social enterprise, Strategic planning and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Psi Water, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Psi Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Psi Water
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Psi Water
Strengths PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Psi Water in PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water Harvard Business Review case study are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Psi Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Psi Water in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Psi Water has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Psi Water to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Psi Water to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Psi Water to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Psi Water
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Psi Water does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Psi Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water - 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
– Psi Water has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Psi Water 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
– Psi Water is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Psi Water has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Psi Water in the sector have low bargaining power. PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Psi Water to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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.
Analytics focus
– Psi Water 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 V. Kasturi Rangan, Nava Ashraf, Marie Bell 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.
Weaknesses PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 Psi Water 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Psi Water 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Psi Water, firm in the HBR case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Psi Water 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water, is just above the industry average. Psi Water 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water HBR case study mentions - Psi Water 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 Psi Water has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Psi Water supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Psi Water vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Psi Water is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 Psi Water 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 - PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water | 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Global Business industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Psi Water 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. Psi Water 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Psi Water can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Psi Water operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Psi Water 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Psi Water 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, PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Psi Water 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 Global Business segment.
Loyalty marketing
– Psi Water 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Psi Water 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 Psi Water to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Psi Water can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Psi Water is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Psi Water 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Psi Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Psi Water to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Psi Water has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Psi Water to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water case study. Psi Water can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Psi Water can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water are -
Increasing wage structure of Psi Water
– 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 Psi Water.
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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Psi Water 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.
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 Psi Water in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Psi Water needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Psi Water 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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Psi Water.
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 Psi Water business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Psi Water is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Psi Water 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 disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Psi Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water .
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. Psi Water 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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 Psi Water needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
