Case Study Description of Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction
Introduces the concept of ecotourism, discusses consumptive and non-consumptive programs, and reviews the benefits and costs of this approach to development.
Swot Analysis of "Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction" written by Robert E. Kennedy, Brian P. Irwin includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Consumptive Ecotourism facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Sustainability and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Consumptive Ecotourism, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Consumptive Ecotourism
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 Consumptive Ecotourism
Strengths Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Consumptive Ecotourism in Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Consumptive Ecotourism is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Consumptive Ecotourism
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Consumptive Ecotourism does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Consumptive Ecotourism has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Analytics focus
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Robert E. Kennedy, Brian P. Irwin 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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.
High brand equity
– Consumptive Ecotourism has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Consumptive Ecotourism to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Consumptive Ecotourism digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Consumptive Ecotourism 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
– Consumptive Ecotourism is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Consumptive Ecotourism is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Consumptive Ecotourism to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Consumptive Ecotourism to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Consumptive Ecotourism 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. Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction, is just above the industry average. Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction, it seems that the employees of Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction HBR case study mentions - Consumptive Ecotourism takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Consumptive Ecotourism is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Consumptive Ecotourism needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Consumptive Ecotourism to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Consumptive Ecotourism 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 - Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Consumptive Ecotourism, firm in the HBR case study Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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 Consumptive Ecotourism has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Consumptive Ecotourism has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction | 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Consumptive Ecotourism to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Consumptive Ecotourism to increase its market reach. Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Consumptive Ecotourism to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Consumptive Ecotourism can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
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. Consumptive Ecotourism 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. Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
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. Consumptive Ecotourism can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Consumptive Ecotourism can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Threats Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction are -
Increasing wage structure of Consumptive Ecotourism
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Consumptive Ecotourism.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Consumptive Ecotourism has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
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. Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
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 Consumptive Ecotourism business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction, Consumptive Ecotourism 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Consumptive Ecotourism with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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. Consumptive Ecotourism 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 Consumptive Ecotourism is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
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 Consumptive Ecotourism in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Consumptive Ecotourism 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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 Ecotourism: A Brief Introduction 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 Consumptive Ecotourism needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.