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 - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, 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 -
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.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Psi Water 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 Psi Water in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
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.
Strong track record of project management
– Psi Water is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
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.
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.
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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Psi Water 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Psi Water 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.
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Psi Water is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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.
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 -
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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water, in the dynamic environment Psi Water has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Psi Water has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Psi Water is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Psi Water needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Psi Water to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Psi Water 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.
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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Psi Water products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Psi Water needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Psi Water 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, V. Kasturi Rangan, Nava Ashraf, Marie Bell suggests that, Psi Water is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Psi Water 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.
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 -
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.
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.
Buying journey improvements
– Psi Water can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Psi Water to increase its market reach. Psi Water 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.
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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Psi Water can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Psi Water can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study PSI: Social Marketing Clean Water, Psi Water may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Psi Water can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 .
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.
Environmental challenges
– Psi Water 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. Psi Water can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Psi Water 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 Global Business industry regulations.
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.
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.