Case Study Description of Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand
In 2012, the marketing department at AkzoNobel India Ltd., a major paints company, faced a key decision concerning the possible relaunch of TileShield, a premium roof tile paint in the company's exterior paints division. Since its inception, TileShield had led the market, especially in the southern part of India, but despite growth in the demand for roof tile paints, TileShield sales had stagnated in 2011-12. Faced with falling sales and intense competition, the company had to decide whether to maintain the status quo or draft a relaunch for the brand. The marketing department would have to make some quick decisions on value proposition and pricing. Kirti Sharma is affiliated with Management Development Institute.
Swot Analysis of "Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand" written by Kirti Sharma, Puneet Sapra includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tileshield Paints facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Customers, Pricing and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tileshield Paints, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tileshield Paints 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tileshield Paints
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 Tileshield Paints
Strengths Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tileshield Paints in Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Tileshield Paints is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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 Tileshield Paints 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tileshield Paints is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tileshield Paints to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tileshield Paints to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tileshield Paints 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tileshield Paints 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Tileshield Paints 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 Tileshield Paints is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tileshield Paints has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tileshield Paints 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.
High brand equity
– Tileshield Paints has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tileshield Paints to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Tileshield Paints in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Tileshield Paints in the sector have low bargaining power. Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tileshield Paints to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Tileshield Paints is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand, in the dynamic environment Tileshield Paints has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tileshield Paints has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Tileshield Paints has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand, it seems that the employees of Tileshield Paints 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tileshield Paints is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tileshield Paints is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tileshield Paints 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand, is just above the industry average. Tileshield Paints 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand, 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 dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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 Tileshield Paints has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Tileshield Paints supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Tileshield Paints vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tileshield Paints is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Tileshield Paints needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tileshield Paints to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand | 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tileshield Paints is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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.
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. Tileshield Paints can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tileshield Paints can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tileshield Paints 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tileshield Paints 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 Tileshield Paints 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Tileshield Paints 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tileshield Paints can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tileshield Paints 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tileshield Paints 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tileshield Paints 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 Tileshield Paints to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tileshield Paints has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Tileshield Paints to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand case study. Tileshield Paints can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tileshield Paints 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tileshield Paints 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.
Threats Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand are -
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 Tileshield Paints.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Tileshield Paints with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Tileshield Paints can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Tileshield Paints 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. Tileshield Paints can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Tileshield Paints 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.
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 Tileshield Paints business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Tileshield Paints 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tileshield Paints 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.
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
– Tileshield Paints 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.
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 Tileshield Paints in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tileshield Paints is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tileshield Paints 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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 Dulux TileShield: Relaunching a Brand 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 Tileshield Paints needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
