Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
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Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market
For the co-founder and CEO of Booster Juice, Canada's largest chain of juice and smoothie bars, international expansion was integral to the firm's strategy, especially as the Canadian market matured. However, working with business cultures and practices in different countries was a major challenge. Booster Juice had been opening three stores per month through the end of 2013, and the CEO was re-examining Booster Juice's international operations, including those in India, where Booster Juice had 18 stores. The CEO was contemplating considerable expansion in the Indian market, which had great potential but presented many challenges. He wanted to open many more stores in India, but existing stores showed merely average performance. Could India provide the sustained market growth that the CEO desired? What would be the perfect approach to India's complex market? Makarand Gulawani is affiliated with MacEwan University. Kimberley Howard is affiliated with Grant MacEwan University. Mike Henry is affiliated with MacEwan University.
Authors :: Makarand Gulawani, Kimberley Howard, Mike Henry
Swot Analysis of "Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market" written by Makarand Gulawani, Kimberley Howard, Mike Henry includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Booster Juice facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Booster Juice, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Booster Juice 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Booster Juice
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 Booster Juice
Strengths Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Booster Juice in Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Booster Juice has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Booster Juice to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Booster Juice 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 Makarand Gulawani, Kimberley Howard, Mike Henry 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Booster Juice has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Booster Juice 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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.
Learning organization
- Booster Juice 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 Booster Juice is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Booster Juice 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Booster Juice 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Booster Juice is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Booster Juice in the sector have low bargaining power. Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Booster Juice to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Booster Juice digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Booster Juice 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.
Training and development
– Booster Juice has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Booster Juice 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 Booster Juice in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Booster Juice, firm in the HBR case study Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market, in the dynamic environment Booster Juice has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Booster Juice has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Booster Juice 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Booster Juice 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Booster Juice 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 - Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Booster Juice 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Booster Juice 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market, is just above the industry average. Booster Juice 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Booster Juice 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Booster Juice is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market | 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market are -
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. Booster Juice 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. Booster Juice 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.
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 Booster Juice 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Booster Juice 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Booster Juice can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Booster Juice 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Booster Juice 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, Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Booster Juice 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. Booster Juice can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Booster Juice has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Booster Juice to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market case study. Booster Juice can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Booster Juice can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Booster Juice 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Booster Juice can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Booster Juice operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Threats Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Booster Juice has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Booster Juice 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Booster Juice 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Booster Juice high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Booster Juice 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Booster Juice is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Booster Juice 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.
Environmental challenges
– Booster Juice 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. Booster Juice can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
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 Booster Juice.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market, Booster Juice 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 .
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 Booster Juice business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Booster Juice 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Booster Juice 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice: Bringing Canadian Smoothies to the Indian Market 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 Booster Juice needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
