Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround
In April 2008, Bruce MacNaughton, president of Prince Edward Island Preserve Co. Ltd. (P.E.I. Preserves), was focused on turnaround. The company he had founded in 1985 had gone into receivership in May 2007. Although this had resulted in losses for various mortgage holders and unsecured creditors, MacNaughton had been able to buy back his New Glasgow shop/cafe, the adjacent garden property and inventory, and restart the business. He now needed a viable product-market strategy.
Swot Analysis of "Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround" written by Paul W. Beamish, Nathaniel Lupton includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Macnaughton Prince facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Globalization, Growth strategy, Risk management and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Macnaughton Prince, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Macnaughton Prince 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Macnaughton Prince
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Macnaughton Prince
Strengths Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Macnaughton Prince in Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Macnaughton Prince has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Macnaughton Prince 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Macnaughton Prince is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
High brand equity
– Macnaughton Prince has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Macnaughton Prince to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Macnaughton Prince is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Macnaughton Prince 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Macnaughton Prince 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 Macnaughton Prince in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Macnaughton Prince to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Macnaughton Prince to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Macnaughton Prince has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Macnaughton Prince 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.
Organizational Resilience of Macnaughton Prince
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Macnaughton Prince does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Macnaughton Prince digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Macnaughton Prince 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.
Weaknesses Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Macnaughton Prince, firm in the HBR case study Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Macnaughton Prince 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Paul W. Beamish, Nathaniel Lupton suggests that, Macnaughton Prince 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, Macnaughton Prince 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Macnaughton Prince 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. Macnaughton Prince 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Macnaughton Prince 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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 Macnaughton Prince has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Macnaughton Prince 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Macnaughton Prince 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Macnaughton Prince 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 - Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround | 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Macnaughton Prince can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Macnaughton Prince 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. Macnaughton Prince 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Macnaughton Prince can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Macnaughton Prince 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Macnaughton Prince to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Macnaughton Prince can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Macnaughton Prince can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Macnaughton Prince has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Macnaughton Prince to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround case study. Macnaughton Prince can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Macnaughton Prince 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.
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 Macnaughton Prince in the consumer business. Now Macnaughton Prince can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Macnaughton Prince is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Macnaughton Prince in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Macnaughton Prince 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Macnaughton Prince can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround are -
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.
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. Macnaughton Prince 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Macnaughton Prince is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Macnaughton Prince can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Macnaughton Prince 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Macnaughton Prince 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Macnaughton Prince 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.
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 Macnaughton Prince in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround, Macnaughton Prince may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Macnaughton Prince 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround .
Increasing wage structure of Macnaughton Prince
– 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 Macnaughton Prince.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Macnaughton Prince has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Macnaughton Prince needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Macnaughton Prince 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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 Prince Edward Island Preserve Company: Turnaround 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 Macnaughton Prince needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.