Case Study Description of Just Us! Coffee Roasters
The founders of Just Us! Coffee Cooperative (Just Us!) are involved in a strategic planning process. The growing demand and acceptance of fair trade products is good news for the industry and opens many opportunities for Just Us!, but there are also risks. Just Us! will likely face increased market competition from major U.S. retail coffee brands and Canadian supermarket brands, pressure on margins as more brands crowd the shelves, and more competition for access to top quality sources of supply. Just Us! will have to make strategic choices and will have to develop a clear and focused marketing plan.
Authors :: Julia Sagebien, Scott Skinner, Monica Weshler
Topics :: Global Business
Tags :: Entrepreneurship, Ethics, International business, Social responsibility, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "Just Us! Coffee Roasters" written by Julia Sagebien, Scott Skinner, Monica Weshler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Coffee Brands facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Just Us! Coffee Roasters case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Ethics, International business, Social responsibility and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Just Us! Coffee Roasters casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Just Us! Coffee Roasters
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Just Us! Coffee Roasters case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coffee Brands, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Coffee Brands 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Just Us! Coffee Roasters case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Coffee Brands
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 Coffee Brands
Strengths Just Us! Coffee Roasters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Coffee Brands in Just Us! Coffee Roasters Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Coffee Brands is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Just Us! Coffee Roasters Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Coffee Brands has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Just Us! Coffee Roasters firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Coffee Brands to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Coffee Brands to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Coffee Brands 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Coffee Brands is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Coffee Brands is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Just Us! Coffee Roasters Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Coffee Brands is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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.
Analytics focus
– Coffee Brands 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 Julia Sagebien, Scott Skinner, Monica Weshler 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Coffee Brands 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Coffee Brands 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 Coffee Brands in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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
– Coffee Brands is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Coffee Brands has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Coffee Brands to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Just Us! Coffee Roasters | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Just Us! Coffee Roasters are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Coffee Brands is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Just Us! Coffee Roasters can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Coffee Brands is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Coffee Brands needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Coffee Brands to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Coffee Brands supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Just Us! Coffee Roasters, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Coffee Brands vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Just Us! Coffee Roasters, in the dynamic environment Coffee Brands has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Coffee Brands has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Coffee Brands products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Coffee Brands needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Julia Sagebien, Scott Skinner, Monica Weshler suggests that, Coffee Brands 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Coffee Brands 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Just Us! Coffee Roasters, 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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 Coffee Brands 's lucrative customers.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Just Us! Coffee Roasters, it seems that the employees of Coffee Brands 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Just Us! Coffee Roasters, is just above the industry average. Coffee Brands 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.
Opportunities Just Us! Coffee Roasters | 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Coffee Brands 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Coffee Brands 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 Coffee Brands has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Coffee Brands to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Just Us! Coffee Roasters case study. Coffee Brands can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Coffee Brands can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Coffee Brands is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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 Coffee Brands 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Coffee Brands 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Coffee Brands 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.
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. Coffee Brands can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Coffee Brands to increase its market reach. Coffee Brands 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 Coffee Brands 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 Coffee Brands to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Coffee Brands 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.
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 Coffee Brands 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Coffee Brands 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.
Threats Just Us! Coffee Roasters External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Just Us! Coffee Roasters are -
Environmental challenges
– Coffee Brands 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. Coffee Brands can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Coffee Brands has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Coffee Brands 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.
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. Coffee Brands 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Coffee Brands 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.
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. Coffee Brands 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Coffee Brands 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.
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. Coffee Brands needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Coffee Brands 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters, Coffee Brands 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 .
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 Coffee Brands.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Coffee Brands 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Coffee Brands 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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 Just Us! Coffee Roasters 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 Coffee Brands needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
