Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template
Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), dubbed "the greatest literary show on earth" was an annual event held in late January at the Diggi Palace in Jaipur. JLF provided a platform for international authors and Indian language authors from the subcontinent to engage in a literary dialogue. By 2011, JLF attracted the largest festival audience in the Asian Pacific region with approximately 60,000 visitors from 24 countries. It featured 224 speakers in 140 sessions, and 100 musicians in 20 concerts. Success had already changed the character of the festival from the earlier more intimate days and had created a momentum that, if not managed correctly, could compromise goals such as the democratic ethos of the festival. While JLF had achieved explosive growth and critical success, its expenses still exceeded its revenue. Could JLF find an organizational and financial "template" which could sutain the festival into the future?
Authors :: Tarun Khanna, Dennis Yao, Hillary Greene, Amrita Chowdhury
Swot Analysis of "Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template" written by Tarun Khanna, Dennis Yao, Hillary Greene, Amrita Chowdhury includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Jlf Festival facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Organizational structure, Social responsibility and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jlf Festival, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jlf Festival 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jlf Festival
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 Jlf Festival
Strengths Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jlf Festival in Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jlf Festival is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Jlf Festival 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 Tarun Khanna, Dennis Yao, Hillary Greene, Amrita Chowdhury 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Jlf Festival is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Jlf Festival has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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.
Learning organization
- Jlf Festival 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 Jlf Festival is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jlf Festival 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jlf Festival 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Jlf Festival is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Jlf Festival has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jlf Festival to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jlf Festival 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Jlf Festival
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Jlf Festival does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Jlf Festival products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jlf Festival needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Tarun Khanna, Dennis Yao, Hillary Greene, Amrita Chowdhury suggests that, Jlf Festival is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template, it seems that the employees of Jlf Festival 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jlf Festival 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jlf Festival 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template, in the dynamic environment Jlf Festival has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jlf Festival has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jlf Festival 's lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Jlf Festival, firm in the HBR case study Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template, 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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 Jlf Festival has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Jlf Festival 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.
Opportunities Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template | 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template are -
Buying journey improvements
– Jlf Festival can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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.
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. Jlf Festival 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. Jlf Festival 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jlf Festival 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Jlf Festival 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jlf Festival 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 Jlf Festival 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.
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. Jlf Festival can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jlf Festival to increase its market reach. Jlf Festival 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jlf Festival can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jlf Festival in the consumer business. Now Jlf Festival can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Jlf Festival can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jlf Festival has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Jlf Festival to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template case study. Jlf Festival can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Jlf Festival 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.
Threats Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jlf Festival 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Jlf Festival with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jlf Festival 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.
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 Jlf Festival 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. Jlf Festival 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template, Jlf Festival 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 .
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. Jlf Festival needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Jlf Festival can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jlf Festival has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jlf Festival 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.
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 Jlf Festival in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jlf Festival 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.
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 Jlf Festival.
Increasing wage structure of Jlf Festival
– 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 Jlf Festival.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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 Jaipur Literature Festival - Beyond the Festival Template 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 Jlf Festival needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
