Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia
It has been four years since Jeff Furman had first travelled to Russia to find a partner so that Ben & Jerry's "finest quality, socially conscious, and economically feasible" super-premium ice cream could be produced in Russia. Now, just a few months in operation, the joint venture was up and running and already profitable. The partners wanted to expand and opportunities were readily available but Jeff questioned the feasibility of such a move. This case presents a common dilemma faced by international companies--how to manage divergent partner goals and perspectives.
Swot Analysis of "Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia" written by Henry W. Lane, Iris Berdrow includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Russia Jerry's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Joint ventures and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Russia Jerry's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Russia Jerry's 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Russia Jerry's
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 Russia Jerry's
Strengths Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Russia Jerry's in Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Russia Jerry's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Russia Jerry's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Russia Jerry's 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Russia Jerry's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Russia Jerry's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Russia Jerry's 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Russia Jerry's 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 lead change in Global Business field
– Russia Jerry's 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 Russia Jerry's in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management
– Russia Jerry's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Russia Jerry's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Russia Jerry's 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Russia Jerry's 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 Henry W. Lane, Iris Berdrow 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
– Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Russia Jerry's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Russia Jerry's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Russia Jerry's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Russia Jerry's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Russia Jerry's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Russia Jerry's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia, is just above the industry average. Russia Jerry's 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Russia Jerry's 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 - Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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 Russia Jerry's has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Russia Jerry's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Russia Jerry's 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. Russia Jerry's 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Russia Jerry's 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Russia Jerry's, firm in the HBR case study Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Russia Jerry's 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Russia Jerry's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Russia Jerry's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia, it seems that the employees of Russia Jerry's 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia | 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia are -
Loyalty marketing
– Russia Jerry's 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Russia Jerry's 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 Russia Jerry's 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Russia Jerry's to increase its market reach. Russia Jerry's 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, Russia Jerry's 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Russia Jerry's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Russia Jerry's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Russia Jerry's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Russia Jerry's can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Russia Jerry's 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Russia Jerry's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Russia Jerry's 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Russia Jerry's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Russia Jerry's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia case study. Russia Jerry's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Russia Jerry's 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Russia Jerry's 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia are -
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. Russia Jerry's 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Russia Jerry's 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, Russia Jerry's 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Russia Jerry's 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.
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 Russia Jerry's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Russia Jerry's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia, Russia Jerry's 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 .
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. Russia Jerry's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Russia Jerry's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Russia Jerry's
– 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 Russia Jerry's.
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 Russia Jerry's in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Russia Jerry's 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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 Iceverks (A): Ben & Jerry's in Russia 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 Russia Jerry's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
