Case Study Description of Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is taking a position on creating a new safety leadership vehicle in the U.S. government. How should it plead its cause? What are the position merits and faults?
Authors :: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harold F. Hogan Jr.
Swot Analysis of "Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective" written by Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harold F. Hogan Jr. includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Faults Plead facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Government, Product development and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Faults Plead, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Faults Plead 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Faults Plead
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 Faults Plead
Strengths Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Faults Plead in Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective Harvard Business Review case study are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Faults Plead in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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
- Faults Plead 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 Faults Plead is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Faults Plead 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
– Faults Plead is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Faults Plead 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Faults Plead 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Faults Plead digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Faults Plead 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Faults Plead has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Faults Plead 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Faults Plead in the sector have low bargaining power. Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Faults Plead to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Faults Plead to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Faults Plead to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Faults Plead is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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.
Weaknesses Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Faults Plead 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Faults Plead products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Faults Plead needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Faults Plead 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Faults Plead needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High 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 Faults Plead supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Faults Plead vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective HBR case study mentions - Faults Plead takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Faults Plead 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 - Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop, Harold F. Hogan Jr. suggests that, Faults Plead 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Faults Plead is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Faults Plead needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Faults Plead to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Faults Plead is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective | 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Faults Plead 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 Faults Plead to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Faults Plead 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Faults Plead is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Faults Plead 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Faults Plead can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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.
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. Faults Plead can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Faults Plead 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Faults Plead has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Faults Plead to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective case study. Faults Plead can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Faults Plead 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Faults Plead 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.
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. Faults Plead can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Faults Plead can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Faults Plead 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.
Threats Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Faults Plead 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 Faults Plead 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Faults Plead 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.
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.
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. Faults Plead 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 Faults Plead with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Faults Plead has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Faults Plead 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective, Faults Plead 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 .
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 Faults Plead in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Faults Plead 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective .
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 Faults Plead business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Faults Plead 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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 Safe Food Act: A Consumer Group's Perspective 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 Faults Plead needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.