What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D)
This is a Darden case study.At the 2004 Institute for Security Studies' anticorruption conference, officials from Lesotho, South Africa, the World Bank, and other governments gathered to discuss and dissect not only the LHWP scandal but other Southern African corruption. At that conference, Fine Maema reminded the participants that the World Bank had praised Lesotho's actions in its 1999 meeting and that while "promises of assistance in these prosecutions were made from various quarters" because of the "considerable drain on Lesotho's financial resources," none of that promised help had materialized. Despite the lack of financial support and the public criticism from international companies, Lesotho had persevered with the cases, making for a true David and Goliath story. This is a four-case series, labeled A through D, UV1142 through UV1145.
Authors :: Pat Werhane, Jenny Mead, Mollie Painter-Moreland
Swot Analysis of "What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D)" written by Pat Werhane, Jenny Mead, Mollie Painter-Moreland includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Lesotho's Lesotho facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Ethics, Regulation and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lesotho's Lesotho, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lesotho's Lesotho 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lesotho's Lesotho
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 Lesotho's Lesotho
Strengths What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lesotho's Lesotho in What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lesotho's Lesotho in the sector have low bargaining power. What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lesotho's Lesotho to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Lesotho's Lesotho is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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 Lesotho's Lesotho in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lesotho's Lesotho is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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 Pat Werhane, Jenny Mead, Mollie Painter-Moreland 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lesotho's Lesotho digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lesotho's Lesotho has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lesotho's Lesotho has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Organizational Resilience of Lesotho's Lesotho
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Lesotho's Lesotho does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Lesotho's Lesotho has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Lesotho's Lesotho 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
– What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Lesotho's Lesotho to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Lesotho's Lesotho to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Lesotho's Lesotho has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Lesotho's Lesotho 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, Pat Werhane, Jenny Mead, Mollie Painter-Moreland suggests that, Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 Lesotho's Lesotho 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Lesotho's Lesotho is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Lesotho's Lesotho needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Lesotho's Lesotho to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lesotho's Lesotho 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. Lesotho's Lesotho even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Lack of clear differentiation of Lesotho's Lesotho products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Lesotho's Lesotho needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lesotho's Lesotho is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D), 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 Lesotho's Lesotho, firm in the HBR case study What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) | 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
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. Lesotho's Lesotho can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Lesotho's Lesotho can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lesotho's Lesotho to increase its market reach. Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Lesotho's Lesotho to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lesotho's Lesotho to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Lesotho's Lesotho 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. Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lesotho's Lesotho in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Lesotho's Lesotho in the consumer business. Now Lesotho's Lesotho can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Lesotho's Lesotho has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Lesotho's Lesotho to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) case study. Lesotho's Lesotho can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) are -
Environmental challenges
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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. Lesotho's Lesotho can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
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 Lesotho's Lesotho.
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. Lesotho's Lesotho can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D), Lesotho's Lesotho 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 .
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lesotho's Lesotho is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Lesotho's Lesotho 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.
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. Lesotho's Lesotho needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Lesotho's Lesotho business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 What Can a Mosquito Do to an Elephant? (D) 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 Lesotho's Lesotho needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.