This case describes the creation of the Juno Beach Centre in France, located where Canadian troops hit the Normandy beach on D-Day. The centre honors and explains Canada's role in the Second World War. It also has a section on contemporary Canadian culture and society. Canadian D-Day veterans, with help from the next generation, formed the Juno Beach Centre Association (JBCA) in the 1990s to raise funds for a museum that would highlight the country's contribution to the Allies winning the Second World War. The many donations from individuals would not be enough. Canadian governments and corporations stated their support and goodwill, but had yet to make significant financial commitments.
Swot Analysis of "Juno Beach Centre" written by James H. Tiessen includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Juno Beach facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Juno Beach Centre case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business, Marketing and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Juno Beach Centre casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Juno Beach Centre
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Juno Beach Centre case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Juno Beach, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Juno Beach 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 Juno Beach Centre can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Juno Beach Centre case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Juno Beach
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 Juno Beach
Strengths Juno Beach Centre | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Juno Beach in Juno Beach Centre Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Juno Beach is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Juno Beach Centre are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Juno Beach in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Juno Beach 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Juno Beach is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Juno Beach Centre Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Diverse revenue streams
– Juno Beach is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Juno Beach Centre 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Juno Beach Centre 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Juno Beach 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 Juno Beach Centre HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Juno Beach in the sector have low bargaining power. Juno Beach Centre has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Juno Beach to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Juno Beach 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 Juno Beach is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Juno Beach Centre Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Juno Beach
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Juno Beach does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Juno Beach Centre firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Juno Beach to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Juno Beach to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management
– Juno Beach is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Juno Beach Centre | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Juno Beach Centre are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Juno Beach is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Juno Beach needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Juno Beach to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Juno Beach Centre, is just above the industry average. Juno Beach needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Juno Beach Centre 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 Juno Beach 's lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Juno Beach 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. Juno Beach 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Juno Beach Centre HBR case study mentions - Juno Beach 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Juno Beach, firm in the HBR case study Juno Beach Centre needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Juno Beach Centre, 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Juno Beach 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Juno Beach Centre 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 Juno Beach Centre can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Juno Beach is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Juno Beach products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Juno Beach 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, James H. Tiessen suggests that, Juno Beach 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.
Opportunities Juno Beach Centre | 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 Juno Beach Centre are -
Buying journey improvements
– Juno Beach can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Juno Beach Centre 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Juno Beach 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Juno Beach 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.
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 Juno Beach 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.
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 Juno Beach in the consumer business. Now Juno Beach can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Juno Beach can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Juno Beach has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Juno Beach to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Juno Beach Centre case study. Juno Beach can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Juno Beach 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 Juno Beach Centre - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Juno Beach to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Juno Beach 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 Juno Beach to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Juno Beach to increase its market reach. Juno Beach 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.
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. Juno Beach 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. Juno Beach 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.
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. Juno Beach can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Juno Beach can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Juno Beach operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Threats Juno Beach Centre External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Juno Beach Centre are -
Increasing wage structure of Juno Beach
– 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 Juno Beach.
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. Juno Beach 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.
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. Juno Beach can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Juno Beach 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 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. Juno Beach needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Juno Beach 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Juno Beach has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Juno Beach 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.
Environmental challenges
– Juno Beach 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. Juno Beach can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Juno Beach 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Juno Beach 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 Juno Beach Centre, Juno Beach 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 .
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Juno Beach is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Juno Beach Centre 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 Juno Beach Centre 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 Juno Beach Centre 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 Juno Beach Centre 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 Juno Beach Centre 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 Juno Beach needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
