Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged)
This case is available in only hard copy format (HBP does not have digital distribution rights to the content). As a result, a digital Educator Copy of the case is not available through this web site.Examines the extended conflict between free traders and protectionists in 19th century Britain. It culminates with Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel's decision at the end of 1845 about whether to repeal the Corn Laws, a series of acts that had protected British agriculture for almost 200 years. With landowners and industrialists battling fiercely over the issues, nearly everyone agreed that the decision would be momentous.
Swot Analysis of "Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged)" written by David A. Moss includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Corn Laws facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economics, Policy and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged)
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Corn Laws, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Corn Laws 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Corn Laws
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 Corn Laws
Strengths Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Corn Laws in Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study are -
High brand equity
– Corn Laws has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Corn Laws to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Corn Laws in the sector have low bargaining power. Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Corn Laws to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Corn Laws digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Corn Laws 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Corn Laws is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Corn Laws in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Corn Laws 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 Corn Laws in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Corn Laws 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Corn Laws
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Corn Laws does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Corn Laws 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 Corn Laws is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Corn Laws to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Corn Laws to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Corn Laws 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.
Weaknesses Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Corn Laws is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Corn Laws needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Corn Laws to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Corn Laws 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Corn Laws 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged), in the dynamic environment Corn Laws has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Corn Laws has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, David A. Moss suggests that, Corn Laws 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Corn Laws 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Corn Laws, firm in the HBR case study Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged), 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Corn Laws 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Corn Laws 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Corn Laws is planning to shift buying processes online.
Opportunities Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) | 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Corn Laws 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, Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged), to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Corn Laws 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Corn Laws 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Corn Laws can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Corn Laws to increase its market reach. Corn Laws 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.
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. Corn Laws can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Corn Laws 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Corn Laws 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Corn Laws 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Corn Laws 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Corn Laws is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Corn Laws can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Corn Laws operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Corn Laws 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.
Threats Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) are -
Regulatory challenges
– Corn Laws needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Global Business industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Corn Laws 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Corn Laws has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Corn Laws 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.
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. Corn Laws 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Corn Laws with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged), Corn Laws may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Corn Laws business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Corn Laws.
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 Corn Laws
– 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 Corn Laws.
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 Corn Laws in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Corn Laws 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. Corn Laws can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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 Free Trade vs. Protectionism: The Great Corn-Laws Debate (Abridged) 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 Corn Laws needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.