Case Study Description of Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management
Ocean Spray Cranberries, one of the nation's most successful agricultural cooperatives, faces some difficult environmental management problems associated with water usage and wetlands development. Because of federal and state wetlands laws, new bogs for expansion had become virtually impossible to develop. Moreover, to protect its valuable brand, Ocean Spray needs to make reasonably certain that its 800 grower-owners utilize the best possible environmental practices in water management and the use of agricultural chemicals. A single incident could cause the company significant harm. The case describes some of the innovative programs undertaken to facilitate best practices among the loose knit community of growers.
Swot Analysis of "Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management" written by Richard H.K. Vietor, Fiona E.S. Murray includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Spray Ocean facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Risk management, Sustainability and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Spray Ocean, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Spray Ocean 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Spray Ocean
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 Spray Ocean
Strengths Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Spray Ocean in Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Spray Ocean
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Spray Ocean does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management
– Spray Ocean 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
– Spray Ocean has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Spray Ocean to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Spray Ocean 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
– Spray Ocean 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 Spray Ocean in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Spray Ocean to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Spray Ocean to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Spray Ocean 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Spray Ocean 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Spray Ocean is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Spray Ocean 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Spray Ocean digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Spray Ocean 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Spray Ocean is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Spray Ocean 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. Spray Ocean 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Spray Ocean 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 - Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Spray Ocean has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Richard H.K. Vietor, Fiona E.S. Murray suggests that, Spray Ocean 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Spray Ocean products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Spray Ocean needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Spray Ocean, firm in the HBR case study Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Spray Ocean 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management, it seems that the employees of Spray Ocean 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Spray Ocean 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Spray Ocean 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Spray Ocean is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management | 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Spray Ocean 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, Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Spray Ocean has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Spray Ocean to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management case study. Spray Ocean can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Spray Ocean to increase its market reach. Spray Ocean 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Spray Ocean 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Spray Ocean to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Spray Ocean 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. Spray Ocean 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Spray Ocean 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Spray Ocean can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Spray Ocean 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.
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. Spray Ocean can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Spray Ocean can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Spray Ocean is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Spray Ocean 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Spray Ocean 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.
Threats Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Spray Ocean 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Spray Ocean is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Spray Ocean business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Spray Ocean 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. Spray Ocean can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Spray Ocean 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.
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. Spray Ocean 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.
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 Spray Ocean in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Spray Ocean in the Global Business industry. The Global Business industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Spray Ocean has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Spray Ocean 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management, Spray Ocean 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 .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Spray Ocean with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Ocean Spray Cranberries: Environmental Risk Management 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 Spray Ocean needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
