Case Study Description of Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges
The turnaround at Snow Brand Milk Products was a real learning experience for all involved. The lessons were many, and while prioritizing them was difficult, it seemed clear that the most significant was the realization that the company existed to serve the consumer and, through that service, the broader society. This brief case outlines the successes that Nobuko Hiwasa pushed Snow Brand management to accomplish, and introduces the challenges that the company faced in 2009: primarily, continuing to build its Corporate Social Responsibility approach and addressing environmental and social issues.
Authors :: Jenny Mead, Regina Wolfe, Akira Saito, Daryl Koehn
Topics :: Global Business
Tags :: Crisis management, Ethics, International business, Leadership, Public relations, Social responsibility, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges" written by Jenny Mead, Regina Wolfe, Akira Saito, Daryl Koehn includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Snow Milk facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Crisis management, Ethics, International business, Leadership, Public relations, Social responsibility and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges casestudy better are - – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Snow Milk, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Snow Milk 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Snow Milk
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 Snow Milk
Strengths Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Snow Milk in Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges Harvard Business Review case study are -
Analytics focus
– Snow Milk 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 Jenny Mead, Regina Wolfe, Akira Saito, Daryl Koehn 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Snow Milk is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Snow Milk 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.
Organizational Resilience of Snow Milk
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Snow Milk does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Snow Milk digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Snow Milk 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Snow Milk is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Snow Milk in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Snow Milk 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Snow Milk has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Snow Milk is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Snow Milk 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Snow Milk has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Snow Milk 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.
Weaknesses Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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 Snow Milk has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges, it seems that the employees of Snow Milk 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Snow Milk 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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 Snow Milk 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Snow Milk, firm in the HBR case study Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Snow Milk 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 - Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Snow Milk products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Snow Milk needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Snow Milk 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. Snow Milk 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Snow Milk 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges, in the dynamic environment Snow Milk has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Snow Milk has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Snow Milk is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges | 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges are -
Manufacturing automation
– Snow Milk 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Snow Milk 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Snow Milk 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Snow Milk has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Snow Milk to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges case study. Snow Milk can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Snow Milk 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Snow Milk 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. Snow Milk 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. Snow Milk 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.
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. Snow Milk can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Snow Milk 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Snow Milk is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Snow Milk 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Snow Milk 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 Snow Milk to increase its market reach. Snow Milk 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Snow Milk can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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.
Threats Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges are -
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 Snow Milk in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Snow Milk has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Snow Milk needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Snow Milk 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Snow Milk 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges, Snow Milk 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 .
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
– Snow Milk 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Snow Milk in the Global Business industry. The Global Business industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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. Snow Milk can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Snow Milk.
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 Snow Milk business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Snow Milk is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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 Snow Brand Milk Products (C): 2009-Remaining Challenges 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 Snow Milk needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.