La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina"
February 2008. Lando Simonetti was enjoying the relative cool of his Cucha Cucha office in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It may have been cool, but definitely not quiet. His desire to always be in the middle of the action at the company also meant he had to live through the noise of the factory. This ability to stay in close contact with people and realities on the ground had been instrumental in building La Martina from a modest polo equipment provider to the premier polo brand in the world, with global sales in excess of US$200 million. La Martina was not about polo: it was polo. As an Argentinean of Italian origin, Lando could not have felt prouder to have conquered Europe. At 65, he had reached the pinnacle of the sport he loved so much. A few nagging questions lingered. The brand was being pushed more and more into fashion, a move he had strongly resisted so far. How would this affect its sustainability? La Martina had never been about fashion; it produced and sold functional polo equipment. Polo had become fashionable, and so had its products. Should he fight the trend or capitalize on it? What would that mean for the company? Fashion also meant growth. So far, he had stubbornly pursued only self-financed growth. Perhaps it was time to consider raising more capital. Learning objectives: Building a brand, managing growth, globalizing.
Authors :: Benoit Leleux, Dominique Turpin, Thomas Brochier
Swot Analysis of "La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina"" written by Benoit Leleux, Dominique Turpin, Thomas Brochier includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Polo Martina facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Entrepreneurship and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" casestudy better are - – increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina"
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Polo Martina, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Polo Martina 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Polo Martina
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 Polo Martina
Strengths La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Polo Martina in La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" Harvard Business Review case study are -
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Polo Martina digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Polo Martina 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.
Analytics focus
– Polo Martina 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 Benoit Leleux, Dominique Turpin, Thomas Brochier 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Polo Martina to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Polo Martina to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Polo Martina 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 Polo Martina in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Polo Martina 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 Polo Martina is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Polo Martina 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Polo Martina in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Polo Martina has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Polo Martina 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 Polo Martina 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 Polo Martina in the sector have low bargaining power. La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Polo Martina to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Polo Martina is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Benoit Leleux, Dominique Turpin, Thomas Brochier suggests that, Polo Martina 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, Polo Martina 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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 Polo Martina 's lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Polo Martina is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Polo Martina products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Polo Martina 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 Polo Martina, firm in the HBR case study La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Polo Martina 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 - La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Polo Martina 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Polo Martina 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina", in the dynamic environment Polo Martina has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Polo Martina has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina", it seems that the employees of Polo Martina 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.
Opportunities La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" | 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Polo Martina to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Polo Martina 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Polo Martina to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Polo Martina to increase its market reach. Polo Martina 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, Polo Martina 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Polo Martina has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Polo Martina to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" case study. Polo Martina 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
– Polo Martina 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.
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 Polo Martina 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Polo Martina is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Polo Martina can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Polo Martina operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Polo Martina 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Polo Martina 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Polo Martina can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Polo Martina 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 Polo Martina to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" are -
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 Polo Martina business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Polo Martina 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Polo Martina has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Polo Martina 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.
Environmental challenges
– Polo Martina 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. Polo Martina can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Polo Martina is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Polo Martina in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Polo Martina needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Polo Martina.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina", Polo Martina 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.
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. Polo Martina 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Polo Martina 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Polo Martina with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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 La Martina (A): "Pasion Argentina" 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 Polo Martina needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.